How To Ruin A Timeline
by WulfTheWriter
Summary: As someone with the powers to do anything they want, Alex decides to alter events of the Naruto universe a bit and then live in the universe. However, does this change things completely? Does it make the world more boring? Or does it make things a lot more... interesting? (Read AN at the top of Chapter 1 for extra information. Important AN at Chapter 12)
1. How An Almost-God Cures Boredom

Author's Note

So, this will be the start of my first fanfic since I decided to pick writing back up. This story is one I thought up when trying to think up what to write about, so I decided to go with a reoccurring character that puts themselves into a universe. The first chapter here should help you understand exactly how I plan on doing such things.

Now, as a warning, this story will be mature for language, alcohol, sexual situations, and lemons/limes. If those terms are still used.

As another warning, this story will have my own OC in it, revolving around said OC, who also is pretty much a Gary Stu (or whatever the term is), but he will not be completely overpowered for the entire story, so don't expect him one-shotting every single main villain by chapter 3. I would like to recommend you read the first two chapters first where everything should be set up to show you how this isn't just some power-trip story.

Tl;dr, give the first two chapters a read first before deciding if the story is not your thing. Don't have to, I would just like to ask that you do. Now, enough of this AN stuff, let's get to the good part.

Edit: Also, to anyone who is interested, I am looking for a Beta Reader to help me with my writing. I'm not sure if it's just FFN not working correctly or people aren't too interested in my story, but I haven't been getting any feedback, so hopefully getting a Beta Reader would help me out greatly. Just send me a private message since I'm not at all sure how it all works.

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from the Naruto universe. Only my OC(s)

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Chapter 1: How an Almost-God Cures Boredom

 **The Room**

The room was a fairly average room. Pretty much a regular living room. There was a couch, a large chair, several bookshelves, a TV cabinet with a strangely small television for the occupants in the room, and a small glass table that sat between the couch and TV cabinet. The most bizarre part, was that the room lacked any sort of door or way out, but that didn't seem to faze either of the two occupants.

One was a male, stretched out on the couch, attention turned to the television boredly to watch what seemed to be the end of an anime, and his blue-green eyes half closed, doing his best to stay awake. He stood at an even six feet tall, taking up the entire couch, dark brown hair disheveled from lying against the couch rest for a long period of time. As the show drew to a close, he groaned and sat up, looking to the other person in the room, seated in the chair, three stacks of twenty-four books next to it.

"Alright, finally got that out of the way. How many did you finish?" He asked them.

The female huffed slightly, arms crossed, blowing a strand of dark red hair out of her face. "All of them. At least seven times. I stopped rereading them about four days ago." She said, her own icy-blue eyes seeming to bore through the other's skull. Hearing her finish, the guy groaned and fell back on the couch.

"Four days ago? Fuck, how long has it been since we started?" He said, muffled from his hands covering his face in slight disbelief.

"At least two weeks. You know, you could have gotten it done faster by skipping the filler." She said, standing up to stretch, sleeveless arms pointing to the ceiling as her stomach was revealed slightly.

"Yeah, but then I would have gotten bored sooner." He replies, sitting back up to stand, only to fall head-first into the table, shattering it into pieces. "Me-dammit…" He says, laying on the floor wooden self that acted as another part of the table, even with a shard of glass impaling his skull. "Tress, little help?" He calls out, turning his head to look up at the other.

"I still don't understand why you got a table made of GLASS." She says, rolling her eyes as she raises one hand, waving it casually. As if someone had hit rewind on a tape, scene of the guy getting up went int reverse, fixing the table and his injuries… only for things to go back to normal when he was in mid-fall, causing the accident to happen again in the same way.

"Fucking hell, Tress, this hurts you know!" He exclaimed, still not at all worried with his injuries. Tress, however, was double over with laughter for her little 'prank'. Eventually she would straighten up, waving her hand again, this time when things rewinded, she stopped right when he was on the couch.

"You know that's the most amount of amusement I get in here, Alex." She says, taking a seat back in the chair, the books lifting up off the floor and back onto the bookshelf by an unseen force.

Alex sighed and nodded. "True, true… Besides, this table means a lot to me. All the furniture in here is what I have left from my parents after all… this, happened." He says, waving his hand around to motion to the room they were in. "Well, now time to find something else to do. Any ideas?"

"Hmm… Well, I didn't particularly like that ending. How about we change it? Or better yet, the whole thing. Anything to get out of this place for a while." She says, leaning her cheek onto her fist, propping it up on the chair's armrest.

Taking a moment to think, Alex nodded. "Eh, that could work. Only question is how…" He trails off, going silent for a minute or two before speaking up again. "Ah-hah! I've got an idea of where to start! I'll take care of the main change, Tress, you take care of the extra stuff."

Quirking an eyebrow, Tress crossed her arms. "And what stuff would that be?"

"Oh, don't give me that. You're part of me after all, you should know."

"Fair enough."

And with those words, the two vanished from the room, leaving it deathly quiet.

 **A forest clearing outside Konahagakure**

Minato stared down the masked man, breathing heavily. He was finding it next to impossible to hit him, but he was slowly figuring out his technique. The night sky grew even darker as rain clouds began to gather, a sudden downpour released. However, neither of them flinched, eyes locked on the other, looking for any sign of the other making a move.

They wouldn't be able to keep it up for long, as suddenly a bolt of lightning struck in the middle of where the fourth Hokage and masked man stood, blinding them for a second. A few moments passed and they were able to see a figure where the lighting hit, clad in what looked to be like an ANBU uniform, but could not see his face due to him looking at the man in the spiral mask.

"Well, good timing on my part. Didn't intend to be this early, so I haven't really thought of what to do with you… Actually, I think you'd be better off not escaping but not dying. See what could happen." The new person spoke out loud to himself. Minato couldn't hear him completely, but not being able to tell if he was friend or foe made him keep his guard up.

"You need to leave. This man is dangerous, I'll take care of-" The Hokage wasn't able to finish his sentence before the man between them seemed to vanish, appearing in front of the masked man, shocking both from not even seeing his body.

"Who-" The masked man started to say before receiving a punch to his stomach, eye widening in shock that he was hit before crumpling to the ground, unable to move. Reaching down, the man removed the mask and picked up the now-unmasked man's body, placing the mask on his own face before walking over to Minato.

"Here, I believe you know this man." He stated, handing the unconscious man to the fourth Hokage.

"Wait, Obito?" He asked in shock. Half of the Uchiha's face was almost unrecognizable, but is was no doubtedly him. Looking up at the other, he narrowed his eyes some.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" He asked, flaring his chakra to both get the attention of another shinobi and attempt to intimidate him.

"Let's just say… I'm here to help prevent you from making a mistake. As for my name… Just call me Kami." He replies, making Minato narrow his eyes further.

"Kami? Who do you think you are to call yourself a god?" He spat out, just as a certain pair of ANBU landed on either side of Minato.

"Hokage-sama, are you okay?" One asked, to which Minato nodded, eyes still locked on the so-called Kami.

"Yes, I'm fi-" He started to say, only to hear a roar to his left, looking over to see… "Oh no. The Kyubi… Kushina!" He explained, handing Obito's body to one of the ANBU. "Take him n and lock him up. I'll be making sure to question him myself." The ANBU nodded and looked at the unconscious man, eyes widening in shock beneath his mask.

"But, sensei, this is-" Minato wouldn't here the rest of those words, already disappearing with his signature technique that earned him the title of 'The Yellow Flash'. Somehow, the Kyubi had made its way to where Kushina and the newly-born Naruto were hiding. As soon as he arrived, he noticed Kushina straining herself, trying to hold the beast back with her chakra chains.

"Kushina!" Minato exclaimed, running to her side. He had to make a choice. Would he try to save his family and let the Kyubi run wild? Or would he stop the beast to save the village? He could only think of one thing to do. Looking into his wife's eyes, Kushina seemed to understand what he was thinking, nodding her head. With a heavy sigh and the thoughts of his upcoming death through the Shiki Fūjin, he turned to Naruto… only to find his son in the arms of the man who called himself Kami. He opened his mouth to yell at him, only for the man to speak first.

"Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt him. This is what I meant by your mistake. I'll take it from here, you just make sure she stays safe." He says before vanishing from sight with the baby, the shock of seeing her child being taken away like that making Kushina's chains disappear, releasing the Kyubi once again.

Before the beast was able to strike the Hokage and his wife down, however, something caught its attention, causing it to turn away before freezing. After moments of staying still, it began to tremble, as if trying to break free and run away, before eventually letting out a loud howl, its body turning into two forms of energy, one part disappearing into the sky, the other into Naruto, held by 'Kami' who seemed to be floating in mid-air above them. Lowering himself to the ground, he gently handed Minato his son, fast asleep with a seal on his stomach, before walking over to Kushina and lightly touching her forehead.

Within moment, Kushina no longer felt close to death's door, standing up and rushing to Minato and Naruto, hugging them both as best she could, not wanting to wake their child up, tears falling from her eyes. Minato looked to his wife and smiled, next turning to the man.

"I don't know how or why you did this, but you have my upmost gratitude. I had never been so afraid, not just of death, but the thought of not getting to watch my son grow up. How can I ever repay you?" He asked, having plenty of questions, but did not want to be rude to the man who saved not only his family, but his village.

"I don't want anything myself. I just thought it would be unfair for you to go through all you have, just to not be with your wife and son as a family. My only request, is that in ten years, you will take two children who will be your son's age into your village and allow them to become shinobi." The man says, to which Minato nods in response. However, before he could ask him anything else, 'Kami' slowly disappeared before their eyes, his body melting away into the night, the only trace of him left being the mask he took from Obito falling to the grass.

 **Ten Years later, in a clearing outside Konahagakure**

Tress stood waiting in the clearing, impatiently tapping her foot on the ground.

"I swear, I finally get to move around, and now I have to wait around…" She mutters to herself before watching Alex appear in front of her in a blur. "Oh, I get it. You were picking up on what the ninja here could do."

"Yep! You get everything else done?" He asked, getting an exasperated sigh in response.

"Oh, yeah. All of it. Every single bit. Why'd I have to do more work?" She said, throwing her hands in the air.

"Because you're still me. You're just the part of me that does the hard work. I get the fun work." He replied, Tress rolling her eyes in response before he continued to speak. "Anyways, we got things going. Mind going over all the changes in the timeline so far? Don't want to have screwed up."

With a nod, Tress produced a notepad. "Well, with Minato around, things went pretty well. Naruto isn't a failure, Uchiha revolution never happened since Fugaku could compromise with Minato. Orochimaru defected but this time before the cursed seal was able to be completed, so Anko is back and while she has a similar personality, she doesn't have the seal. Obito has been rehabilitated and explained about how he survived, but for 'some reason' can't use his Kamui ability anymore… That seems to be the biggest differences so far. Oh, wait, Kumogakure didn't try to abduct Hinata and there seems to be an alliance between them, Konoha, and Sunogakure. The other two major cities are either at war or still upset with Minato. Don't think I need to say which is which." She says before putting her notepad away.

"Perfect! Now, all that's left is for me to go." Alex says, Tress raising one eyebrow.

"Wait, go? I wasn't aware of this part. What are you planning now, and what am I supposed to do?" She asks, crossing her arms.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm just spicing it up a bit. I'd say you can do whatever you want, but I wouldn't want you to interfere for now. In fact, to make sure it goes perfectly, I'd like you to go on and leave me here and find something to do to entertain yourself for the next… I dunno, few years? You'll understand when the time comes." He tells her, looking around the clearing as if checking for something.

"Alright, then. Don't let me keep you for your fun. Hope you don't get bored this time." She says before vanishing, teleporting to who-knows-where.

"I hope I don't either." Alex says with a smile as he thinks of how things are finally going to be interesting in his life again, closing his eyes. Moments later, everything around him seemed to vanish, his mind becoming devoid of all thought. A complete feeling of nothingness.

A nothingness that would be broken by a nearby scream.

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Author's Note

And there we have it. Chapter One is done! I do hope people enjoyed reading this chapter, and while much didn't actually happen, I wanted to do my best to give some background, the premise to the story, and also get people interested.

Feel free to leave a review of what you think and how I might be able to adjust my writing to make it a bit more interesting.

Until next time!


	2. Enter the Surprise Second Character!

Author's Note

Well, I already messed up my own schedule. I was planning on working on this story every day, but I ended up not doing anything yesterday. Hooray! Well, I'm not going to throw away the daily part just yet. It will be my plan to upload a new chapter each day, but I have no promises that will happen. Either way, this is where the actual story starts, the last chapter mainly just setting up events for the current day. Honestly not too proud of it, but it was the best way I could go about doing so without seeming completely cliché. Anyways, here's the new chapter. Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 2: Enter the Surprise Second Character!

 **Forest Clearing**

The first thought that came to the boys head when he awoke was of the pain that ran through his head, laying on the ground in the middle of the clearing. Sitting up, he reached up to rub the back of his head in some attempt to soothe the ache, opening his eyes to look around.

"Where am I?" He asked out loud to no one in particular, looking down to see if there was anything else strange. He had on a pair of closed-toed sandals that seemed to fit his feet perfectly, a pair of dark pants, fitting him in just the right way that he could run with no problem, a long sleeve shirt with a jacket over, several different pockets all over it. One pocket was left open with something inside.

"What's this?" He asked out loud, again. It was a note. Opening it up, he saw something written on it.

 _Your name is Alex. Find Minato Namikaze. He will help you._

In the bottom right of the paper, it was simply signed as 'Kami'. Standing up slowly, he rubbed his eyes as he looked around once again. His own name sounded familiar, but the other one didn't sound like one he had heard of before. Taking a deep breath, he tried to think of where to go or how he came to this location, but he couldn't think of anything. As he tried to think harder, there was a loud scream nearby, making him snap out of his thoughts.

"That's right! That scream woke me up!" He said to himself, looking to the direction it came from. He didn't know where he was, or how to find this Minato person, but he wasn't going to get any answers waiting around. Deciding to at least try, he took off sprinting toward the scream.

It didn't take long to find the source. After almost a minute of running, he came upon a road, four figures moving along it. Three of them were grown men, one large and muscular, one tall and skinny, and the other short and fat. They were laughing to themselves and talking about who was no doubt the fourth person, a girl with dark red hair. She was bound, gagged, and thrown over the larger man's shoulder, squirming as if trying to get away.

"Ah, finally we got her silenced! If I heard her scream in my ear one more time, I'd no doubt slit her throat before we got to the marketplace." The short one said.

"And we'd have killed you as well. This girl's got huge chakra reserves and is a redhead. There's no doubt she's an Uzumaki. You know how much someone would pay for the last child of that dead clan? The only other left is that one married to that Namikaze, so there's no way we'd be able to get to her." The tall one replied.

 _Namikaze? So they knew where he was! Maybe they could help. But wait, they're talking about selling that girl. I need to help her-_ *Thunk*

Alex's thoughts were interrupted, hearing something hit the tree next to where he was hiding, hard. Looking over, he saw a sharp metal object pointing out from the trunk, less than an inch from her face. Turning back, he found himself staring down at the three men.

"Well, seems your aim's gotten shittier." The tall one said, making the shorter one glare up at him.

"I didn't miss nuthin'! You're just a shit sensor." He retorted before looking back to Alex. "So, kid, what're you doing out here?" He asked, giving a wide, menacing grin.

"Oh, well, you see, I was lost, and heard you guys mention knowing Namikaze and-" Alex started, stumbling over his words before being interrupted.

"So what if we mentioned his name? You some sort of spy?" The short one yelled, the taller one placing his hand in front of him before he could take a step forward.

"Be careful. He might be part of that secret program in Konoha. The one where they train ninjas from birth to be perfect weapons. I could feel his strength, but I can't sense any chakra from him, so he must be suppressing it." With that, the three men stared down at Alex harder.

"Ah, so that's what it is. You were sent here to kill us and take the girl so she could be used in that same project, weren't you?" The shorter one said snidely, the three of the slowly stepping forward towards Alex, the big guy who had stayed silent tossing the girl aside onto the ground, her body going limp as her head hit the road headfirst.

"Careful, we don't want her too damaged. But you know what? I think some sicko's wlling to buy her even if she is dead!" The taller one said. Alex slowly backed away as they walked toward him. The short one had pulled out multiple sharp, knife-like objects from somewhere, holding them in his fingers. The larger one cracked his knuckles menacingly, and the tall one chuckled darkly.

Not knowing what to do, all Alex could do was yell before he was attacked.

 **Two Hours Later**

Two ANBU arrived at a part of the woods where there had once been a road. Now, there was practically nothing. The land around them looked as if a war had been fought. Trees were burnt or split in half, the ground was displaced and burnt as if lightning had struck the ground, and the air felt like it was below freezing.

"What do you think happened?" One ANBU, a weasel mask hiding his face, asked the other. His partner knelt down and removed his own mask, running two fingers along a part of the ground and lifting them to his covered nose, trying to get any kind of scent. Sighing, he stood back up.

"Whatever it was, it isn't here anymore." He said, the two splitting up to investigate more. They found three bodies around the area, each of different sizes, but they were each mutilated beyond recognition, their clothing nothing more than rags on their body.

"Kakashi!" The weasel masked called out, waving the other over to where he was. "I found someone!"

Moving over to his partner, he was surprised to find two children underneath a piece of rubble from the earth that made a perfect shelter and hiding place. One was a boy, he body beaten and bloody, his breathing shallow. The other was a girl who he was holding onto, a large gash across her stomach. As if sensing their presence, the boy opened his eyes.

"Please, help her." He managed to get out hoarsely before falling limp.

 **The Next Morning, Konohagakure Hospital**

Tsunade was extremely annoyed. Usually she got mildly irritated, but today was not that day. Sitting at a desk, she rubbed her temples, eyes closed, papers scattered over the top, with two of them in particular standing on top. Behind her, her assistant Shizune stood holding Tonton, a frown on her face. They sat in silence for a few moments, Shizune opening her mouth to speak, only for the door to her office slam open and a certain toad sage to barge in.

"Tsunade! Are you sure about-" Jiraiya began only to take a punch to the head.

"Shut up, you old letch! It's too early for you to be yelling." Tsunade said, before letting out a sigh. "But yes, it's completely true. Not only did Shizune and two others test him yesterday for the same results, but I also checked on him today and yesterday at Minato's request. I don't understand why, but after reading these letters they had on them, he told me to make sure that I keep him updated on how they were doing." She says, opening a drawer to pull out a bottle of sake. Shizune opened her mouth to say something, but…

"Isn't it too early to be drinking? You still have a full day to go through." Jiraiya said, beating Shizune to the punch, the girl's shoulders slumping. Tsunade just waved her hand dismissively.

"I'm just going to have a glass. Or two. But I think I need it after this. I mean, I haven't seen something like this since Naruto broke his arm when he was four. An hour later, he was good as new. Until he broke the other one doing the same thing." They both got a small chuckle at remembering that event until Tsunade's face became serious once again, taking a drink.

"But now… now I don't know what to say. The girl got here just in time, but she should have to recover for at least another two weeks. Yet now, she's wide awake." She said, taking another drink. "There wasn't anything we could do for him after several hours. The internal damage was too much. We did as much as we could to the point three people had to stop before chakra exhaustion hit them. We were going to see if he would at least live to see the morning, but it was close to impossible. Yet this morning, he's completely fine. 100% fine. Just in asleep."

With that, Tsunade downed the rest of her drink, pouring herself a new one, Jiraiya taking a seat next to her. "Anything else?" He asked, acting like he was joking. Tsunade just hung her head.

"He didn't have any chakra." She replied, making Jaraiya almost fall out of his chair.

"Wait, no chakra? Like, at all? Surely there was at least _some_ to show signs of chakra exhaustion, right?" Jiraiya asked, only for Tsunade to shake her head.

"That's why we thought he was already dead. Not a single bit in him. Hell, he didn't even have any tenketsu when we had one of the Hyugas working here check him out. This morning? Not only does he have chakra now." A gulp of her glass. "He has four times the amount of Naruto."

Jiraiya let out a small sigh hearing that. "That… that's some miracle alright… What do you need me for anyways if you know all that?" Tsunade sat back to think.

"You've mastered Sage Mode, right?" She asks to which he nods. "I know it might not be much medically, but there's just something… off about them both. I'm pretty sure the girl's asleep now, so I just wanted you to use your senjutsu chakra to just look them over and see if there's anything… strange about them." Jiraiya raised one eyebrow.

"You do know that I can't just do it whenever I want. Besides, you know how ugly I look when I do it. Unless you're completely sure that I need to-" The toad sage was interrupted by Tsunade hitting her desk.

"I. Am." She says, her demeanor more serious than Jiraiya had seen in a while. Letting out a sigh, he stands up.

"Alright, alright… But only because it's for you. And Minato, technically. Just give me a few minutes." He says before walking out, Tsunade giving him a small nod of appreciation.

After finishing her second cup, Tsunade put the bottle aside, going over papers through her desk as she waited for Jiraiya to come back. It wouldn't take more than fifteen minutes before the sage returned. Before saying anything, he would walk over and pick up the bottle, taking a big drink from the bottle itself, before sitting down, looking extremely exhausted.

"You weren't just right. You were _too_ right." He said, making Tsunade blink. "I'll tell you what I found out, but we need to go talk to Minato about this soon." Tsunade let out a sigh, already regretting asking Jiraiya to check on them.

 **Four Hours Later, the Hokage's Office**

Minato Namikaze wasn't one to disbelieve his teacher and close friend, as well as one of the best medics in the Elemental Nations. However, he couldn't seem to bring himself to accept what they were saying. Maybe it had to do with the smell of alcohol on their breath?

"So, what you're telling me is, is that not only are they completely fine, but the boy had no chakra and now suddenly has more chakra than my son. The girl, while not having as much, is on par with the amount of chakra from the Kyubi that my son has. And, not only does the girl's chakra feel similar to that of my son's when he is practicing with the Kyubi chakra, she also seems to have roots from the Uzumaki family." The sannin both nod, causing the Fourth Hokage to sigh and hold his face in his hands.

"Alright, that does seem possible to some degree. I won't doubt that. But what I still don't understand, is how the boy's chakra is different." He says, looking to Jiraiya for an explanation.

"I don't know entirely myself. This isn't something I've ever come across. But, according to Fukasaku and Shima, his chakra is much more… wild yet potent. It seems to work the same as our chakra, to a degree, but until he's awake and gets some kind of training, I can't tell what he'll be able to do with it." The sage replies, Minato nodding his head.

"I see… But what do you mean by 'wild and potent'? Is it in the same way as tailed beast chakra?" He asks, trying to get an idea of what Jiraiya was telling him, but it was Tsunade that answered.

"We had an Aburame come in to do one last test for us and took a bit of his chakra to see how it reacted. He told us that it not only made his bugs feel stronger, but made himself feel stronger, almost like it was natural to him. The little bit he did manage to take, though, would be enough to feed his own insects for almost five times longer than regular chakra. We asked him to come back later to tell us if anything changes or if anything else happens." She says, Minato nodding once again.

"Alright, that clears that up. How are they now?" He asks after taking a deep breath.

"Well, you see… the boy's waiting right outside." Jiraiya said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, Minato widening his eyes.

"Wh-" He started before letting out a sigh. "You did say he was fine… Thankfully you put up that seal, but why are they here?" He asks, sitting back in his chair.

"He woke up as we left to come here. He only asked where you were, so…" Jiraiya trailed off, Minato pinching his nose.

"So you just brought him here… Alright, bring him in. I wanted to talk with him anyways." The sannin nod, Tsunade moving over to open the door. However, when she did open it, he was surprised to see a different boy burst in.

"Hey, dad! There's this kid by himself waiting to see you!" A ten-year old Naruto called out, wearing a bright orange jacket with a dark shirt and pants. He wanted a jumpsuit he saw in that color for when he went to the academy, but after hearing about how it would give him away as a ninja, he decided against getting it, but still bought orange clothing as more casualwear.

Behind him was his mother, grabbing her son before he could run up to his father. "Naruto! Your father is busy with something." She said, looking over at her husband and the sannin in the room. "Oh, hello Jaraiya. Tsunade. Hope we didn't interrupt." She says apologetically, smiling to them both.

"We were just about to get the boy to talk to him a bit." Minato said, seeing the other boy walk into the room. "Hello there, I'm Minato Kamikaze. I heard you were looking for me. Could I get your name?"

It was almost eerie how calm the boy was. Not just calm, but carefree. "I'm Alex. I was just told to find you and you would take care of me." He stated, glancing curiously to the others around the room.

"Alex? Well, that doesn't sound from around here. Where are you from?" The hokage asked, getting a shrug in response.

"I don't know where I'm from. I just woke up in some forest, found three guys carrying a girl away. They attacked me, and that's all I remember." He said, Minato nodding. He would ask him about what happened at the clearing, but if that's that he remembers, someone most likely saved him when he was knocked out at some point but didn't want to be found. Maybe a missing-nin who couldn't watch two kids being attacked?

Naruto and Kushina watched silently listening to them talk. When no one else spoke, Naruto blurted out. "Hey, if you don't have a place to go, why not stay with us?" He said, his mother giving him a light bap on his head with her fist for speaking out.

Alex blinked and looked to the other boy, Minato chuckling lightly while the sannin watched with a smile. Naruto was always nice to others and did his best to help people out. That's one reason why he said he wanted to be a ninja like his parents.

Alex thought for a moment, tilting his head. "But what about the girl?" He asks, Minato tilting his head.

"What do you mean?" He responds, not really understanding what he meant.

"I want to protect her. So where I go, she has to come to." He says, crossing his arms. For a moment, Minato blinked. He didn't show much care for her until now, after all. Alex himself wondered where that came from. He didn't even know her name.

"Well, in that case… I don't think we'll be able to take care of you both at our place. I could possibly arrange for getting your own place." He says, rubbing his chin in thought. "But, I can't just pay for you both all the time… How about if you train to become a shinobi of this village, then I'll give you an allowance to until you're able to make money from helping out the village."

At the mention of being a shinobi, Naruto smiled wide. "Yeah! You could join the academy with me! Being a shinobi like my dad to protect the village is my dream!" He yelled, startling Alex a bit as he thought it over. "I… don't know how well I'll do, but I can try." He says, Minato nodding.

"Alright, then I'll see about getting you a place to stay by tonight. Is there anything else I can do?" He asked the boy.

"I'm fine for now. Thank you. I'm going back to the hospital to see her now." He says, exiting quickly. Naruto tried to run after him, but his mom held him back.

"Naruto, wasn't there something you had to tell your father?" She asks, sternly looking down at him.

Minato blinked as he looked to his son, who was now trying to act nice, but the glance to the window behind him gave it away. Turning around, he saw the Hokage monument covered in graffiti, making him groan as the two sannin begin to laugh.

 **Back At the Hospital**

Alex quickly made his way back to the room he woke up in. While he wasn't there for long, he had remembered the way to get there, not drawing much attention to himself as he entered the room. The girl was awake, sitting up in her bed and looking out the window, not noticing him there. Suddenly, he was reminded of what he said to the Hokage. He didn't know her name. All he did was try to make sure she was okay.

"Hi." He said, the girl jumping and turning to him.

"You're the one who saved me, right?" She asks. "They told me that they found someone with me, trying to help me." Her voice was small, her body a bit tensed up. It was a bit expected after what had happened to her, but there was something in her voice that told him she just wanted to feel safe. He moves over, sitting on the side of his own bed.

"I don't know. I saw those guys carrying you, then they attacked me. Only thing else I remember was trying to keep you alive." He says, looking down. What did happen then? They sat in silence for a few moments.

"Thanks." She said, Alex looking up. "You might not have saved me from those guys, but you helped keep me safe." She was looking back out the window, turned away from him.

"My name's Alex by the way. And I didn't know if you had anywhere to go, so I went to the Hokage person here and he said he'll get us a place to stay since we're all better. I don't remember anything except for when I saw those guys carrying you." He says, the two of them sitting in silence again.

"I don't remember where I'm from either." She says, looking back to him. "Will you… save me again, if I need it?" Alex looks to her a smiles. "Of course! I'm even going to become a shinobi so I can get stronger!" At that, she smiles.

"I'm glad to hear that." She says, relaxing a bit. After a moment of thinking, she speaks again. "Do you think I can become one as well? I just don't want to… you know." She didn't have to say it out loud, but Alex could tell it was because she didn't want to be in that same situation as before.

"I'm sure you can! We'll ask them when they come by to pick us up." He says to her, her nodding in response. There was another minute of silence, neither of them sure of what to say to each other before Alex remembered something. "Oh, yeah, what's your name?" The girl looked at him and blinked, realizing she didn't tell him yet.

"I'm Kina."

* * *

Author's Note

And that'll be all for today. I spent a lot longer on this than I thought I would. Chapter one took maybe an hour, while this took almost three. Going through this, I probably left a few plot holes here and there. I did have to leave a few things out a change a few parts repeatedly just because I haven't fully fleshed out my own characters, strangely enough. I do have several things in store, particularly for the next chapter where we'll do a bit of a time skip to when they're training to learn about being a shinobi.

I do feel like this is slow from writing it, but I'm not sure how it will feel reading it, so any feedback is appreciate. Are there too many details? Not enough details? Just the right amount? Let me know how I can best make myself better to make my story a bit more enjoyable to read.

Until next time!


	3. The Way of the Shinobi

Author's Note

There we go! This time I'm keeping on schedule, working on the next chapter the day I need to. Doesn't hurt that I didn't have anything else to do for the day.

But anyways, I hope people are enjoying the story so far. I've only gotten one review so far, but it was positive, so that's definitely helping me to keep going. While I do have a few things planned out more than I did before, I still don't have a real estimate on how long this story will end up. I'm at least hoping to get to 100k words of story, but right now, it can go on forever.

That's enough from me, let's get right into things!

* * *

Chapter 3: The Way of the Shinobi

 **Three Weeks Later**

Alex and Kina both got used to Konoha fairly quick. Without any memories of a place to call home, it was easy to get comfortable in the… 'apartment', the were given to stay. Instead of a place that was part of an apartment complex, Minato gave them what was essentially a small house. It was a bit too large for a regular person to call an apartment, having two bedrooms with their own bathrooms, a large room that had a kitchen, dining room, and living room altogether, a storage closet that they were told they could use to hold gear, and a small backyard area for training at home if they wanted.

Kina had asked if she could become a ninja as well, to which the Hokage said that there wasn't anything against her becoming one. However, the academy was on break for the next month and a half, so they would have to receive training from others until then. They didn't start immediately, being given a few weeks to get to know the village, go shopping for clothing, and they even got to know a few of the other kids who they would be in class with.

Alex was awoken by a loud knock on his door, him getting up slowly only to have a kunai thrown in front of his face, narrowly missing his nose. Quickly looking to the door, he saw a girl with purple hair and wearing a fishnet vest spinning a kunai, shaking her head slowly.

"Wow, I was told you had no training whatsoever, but I didn't think it would have been this bad." She says with a sigh. "Alright, whatever. I was sent to come get you guys by the Hokage. I'm supposed to help you guys get some equipment and then take you to your Training ground. Now let's go, your girlfriend's already up." She said before walking away.

Alex was a bit stunned, not expecting this kind of wake up call. It wasn't until the woman walked away that he registered what she said.

"She's not my girlfriend!" He would call out before getting ready. He and Kina had gotten a lot closer for sure, though. While they weren't inseparable, they definitely spent a lot of time together. A few of the other kids were already teasing them about it, but they would just deny it, blushing all the while.

Meeting up with Kina and the woman, who he learned was named Anko, the older girl nodded to them and waved the on. They were mostly prepared already, already given some of the more basic gear that a ninja would need. To train, they needed to decide on how best they felt like fighting. They both thought about it, but couldn't really decide, so they were to go look at weapons and to see if any of them felt natural to them. Although, Alex did begin to feel like they were sent the wrong person from how Anko casually had a kunai out the entire time on their walk to the weapon shop, idly filing her nails with it when she wasn't using the throwing knife in threatening someone who looked at her funny.

Eventually they reached one of the most famous weapon shops in Konoha, known for having both high grade and high priced weapons. Of course, they weren't there to buy anything, but they were given permission due to the huge variety of weapons, and because Kina had made friends with the daughter of the owner who also happened to greet them.

"Ah, hey Kina! Training starts today, huh?" A girl slightly than them said from behind the counter, her hair in twin buns, standing next to her father. Kina smiled wide and nodded. Even though Ten-ten was a year older than her and was already on a genin team, she met them when she was with her teammate Neji who had to look after Hinata when she was playing around with some of the other kids.

"Yeah! Think you can help me find something, Ten-ten?" Kina replied, getting a nod from her friend who began helping her immediately, leaving Alex alone with Anko.

"Alright, kid. Go nuts." She said nonchalantly. She really didn't seem too concerned with his own safety. Moving around the shop, the picked up a few different weapons, swinging them around a bit lazily, trying different ways to hold them, and making up stances. He didn't really know what it meant for something to feel natural, but he wasn't going worry if he didn't find a weapon. They were told it was fine if they didn't, they would just need to focus more on ninjitsu.

Little did he know was that the owner was watching him intently the whole time, observing the way the boy tried out the weapons. Eventually Kina and Ten-ten came up, both girls smiling wide.

"Hey, dad, do we have two cheap swords Kina can get?" The bun-haired girl asked, making her father blink and turn back to them.

"Two?" He asked, to which the girls nodded.

"Yeah, nothing too big. Something about holding a sword in each hand just feels better. Than using one." Kina said, making Ten-ten's father blink before nodding.

"Ah, right. I do believe I have some over there on the rack near the front. Just pick out any two you like and have whoever brought you here come pay for them." The girls nodded and ran off, telling Anko to pay for them, who nodded, having been given their allowance but told to hold onto it until they were done shopping. Walking over to the counter, she looked over to Alex.

"Hey, gaki, you find anything? We're about to leave!" She called out, to which the boy shook his head.

"No, they just all feel the same." He says, putting back a pair of tonfas he was holding before heading over to where Kina was.

As Anko paid for the sword, the owner leaned in. "Keep an eye on that boy. I don't know if he was just messing around, but he was using stances to hold weapons that I haven't seen in years." He whispered. Blinking, Anko nodded, mentally telling herself to let the Hokage know before walking out, Alex and Kina in tow, Alex holding onto one of the swords Kina picked up to look it over.

" _Maybe these kids aren't so boring after all."_ Anko thought to herself, leading them to a training ground they were told to meet at.

 **Training Ground 27**

When they arrived, they immediately noticed they weren't alone. There was already a small crowd of people, containing both kids their age and adults. As they got closer, they could make out all who was there, having met them all over the past few weeks at some point.

"Naruto, I told you, this was supposed to help Alex and Kina. They have a lot to catch up on, and they hardly know the basics." Kushina said, rubbing the bridge of her nose as her son looked at the ground. Jiraiya, however, came up behind Naruto, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, don't be so hard on him. He just wanted to make sure they made friends with everyone, right Naruto?" The sage says, Naruto looking up and nodding.

"Besides, I thought it would be fun!" He says, his mood going from ashamed to his usual, energetic self.

"Well, I can't blame you for that… but did you have to invite _everyone_ here?" She asks, motioning around to the small crowd gathered.

"Don't worry Miss Namikaze, me and Lee will help make sure these two begin their most youthful training!" The eccentric as ever Might Guy said, giving her a thumbs up. Mirroring him was what could only be described a miniature version of him.

"That's right! And to go easy on them, we'll only do fifty laps around the village instead of the usual one hundred!" Rock Lee said, his sensei getting emotional at his devotion. Alex and Kina decided to tune them out as they looked over to see who else was there.

"Those two are always so loud… why are we even here? This is just going to be such a drag…" One Shikamaru said, laying down on the grass next to his best friend Choji, followed by the stoic Shino, and Kiba who was petting his partner, Akamaru. Nearby, Ten-ten's other teammate Neji sat, eyes closed as he meditated.

"My mom told me to come. My sister heard Naruto talk about this with us the other day. I wasn't going to come, but after Hana told mom about it, I didn't have a choice. Guess its better I did since I thought there wasn't going to be that many people." Kiba spoke up, with Akamaru giving a small yip in agreement.

Shino said nothing.

"At least you aren't on a team with them." The Hyuga said, Choji nodding in agreement as he ate away at his bag of chips.

"Besides, Ino dragged us along. Something about wanting to see Sasuke and her father told her she could only go if we were too." Shikamaru just sighed and closed his eyes, almost having forgotten about the group of girls off to the side giggling to each other.

Ino, Sakura, and Hinata all sat close together, whispering and giggling to each other. Occasionally they would stop to look over to one of the boys before continuing. Most of the time, they would look over to where four figures were leaning against a tree, two holding a particular book.

"Nii-san, why do you only read that book when mom and dad aren't around?" Sasuke asked to his brother. Itachi let out a small sigh, closing his eyes.

"I guess with us working together so long, I was bound to rub off on him." A silver-haired jonin stated, out of his ANBU uniform this time.

"I still don't know what you two see in those books…" A certain Obito Uchiha said. After his forceful return to Konoha, he had taken several years to go through rehabilitation, but finally had forgiven himself and Kakashi for what happened before. He revealed the truth about Madara being alive and how he was saved, letting the Uchihas recover their ancestor's body to properly bury. Tsunade was even able to help restore Obito more to his original self, slowly getting rid of the white Zetsu that had become part of him while also using Zetsu's dna to learn how to heal certain injuries better.

It wasn't all bad, either. Obito was able to regrow his missing eye, although it can't use the sharingan. He was still under watch for a while longer, but he planned on entering the ANBU when he was able.

"That's a story for another time. Right now, we're going to start training." Itachi said, closing his book and putting it away, pointing over to where Anko, Alex and Kina had arrived.

Everyone else soon began to noticed, everyone gathering together.

"Well, I wasn't expecting such a large turnout, but considering who all we have here, we'll be able to work on a bit of everything today. Although I did ask Hana to come by to help as well, she hasn't shown up just yet…" Kushina said to everyone, just as Hana appeared along with Asuma and Kurenai.

"Sorry I'm late! I thought we would need a bit more help, so I asked Asuma and Kurenai to come along." Hana said, Asuma and Kurenai greeting the group.

"Well, perfect! We'll split up the boys and girls to make things a bit easier, and so that Kina can get in some kunoichi training that she missed. Jiraiya, you take care of the boys." She said, getting nods of approval, the girls moving to one side of the training ground to begin.

"Alright, well we do have a bit to cover. We'll divide the oldest as instructors for different areas. Gai, Lee, and Neji will be in charge of taijutsu. Itachi, Obito, and Asuma will be in charge of shuriken throwing and weapon use. Finally, Kakashi and I will help you with chakra exercises and basic ninjutsu. Alex, you'll just be rotating out so we can see how well you do on each and see what you need to work on the most between the three groups while the rest of you can go to whichever you feel you need the most work on." Jiraiya said. When he was done, everyone nodded except Alex who couldn't help but feel a bit out of place.

 **Taijutsu**

To start off, Alex was directed into some stretching to help loosen himself up. Close to the end, though, Lee and Gai were bending their bodies in ways that Alex could even attempt to do without hurting something. Once that was over, Gai told Alex to stand a few feet away from him.

"Alright, now, let's test the strength of your youth! Come at me and hit me as hard as you can!" Gai said, giving Alex a thumbs up. He hesitated for a moment before taking a deep breath and charging at him, rearing his fist back, before slamming it as hard as he could into Gai's stomach.

It was like punching a rock.

Holding his wrist, Alex took a step back, gritting his teeth. Was this man even human?

"What's the matter?" Gai asked, not even moving like he felt anything. Seeing Alex holding his wrist, he frowned. "I guess that may have asked for a little much… Lee! Help him test his youthfulness!"

"Yes Gai-sensei!" Lee said, suddenly standing next to his sensei before getting into a fighting stance. Alex, seeing the other boy take place as his opponent, shook his hand to get ready. Taking a deep breath, he charged at the spandex-clad opponent, once again rearing his fist back, aiming to hit him in the chest… only for Lee to seemingly disappear. Next thing Alex knew, he was face-down in the ground.

"Alex! Are you okay?" Lee said, him and Gai helping him up. "I was trying to hold back, but I guess I didn't hold back enough."

"Yeah, I just, you know, was testing you, heheh…" Alex said, trying to make light of the situation, but no one else found it funny except for Kiba, laughing to the side after watching Alex hit the ground like that.

"Alright, well, let's have Neji try. This time, instead of you attacking him, he'll try to hit you and you just have to dodge." Gai said, Alex nodding, a bit dazed still but recovering.

"Alright… Bring it on." He said after catching his breath. Neji approached him, moving into his family's stance.

"Just to let you know, I won't be using any chakra in my hits, so you won't have to worry about being hurt too badly." Neji said, not wanting to hurt him by accident if the last example was anything to go by.

Alex nods, bracing himself, waiting for Neji to move. When Neji finally rushed towards him, he did his best to try and watch for the first attack. However, while Neji's strikes were light, they came fast. As hard as Alex tried, he only seemed to move into place for the next attack. Even trying to move erratically didn't help much. After a bit of constantly getting hit, Alex did the best thing he could do to get away: Run.

Turning around, he ran away from Neji, the boy blinking and stopping in surprise. But Alex didn't know, he kept running. As he ran, Kiba couldn't help but laugh even more, the others watching on in disbelief.

"This… may be a lot harder than we thought." Gai muttered out loud, Neji and Lee nodding in response.

 **Weapons Training**

After a short break to rest, Alex moved over to where Asuma, Itachi, and Obito. Even though he didn't have a specific weapon to work with, Asuma started things off by showing him about using a kunai in close ranged combat. It wasn't too overly complex, but Alex seemed to follow the instructions given to him just perfectly. Not only that, his stance for being on guard was practically flawless.

"Well, I'm not sure what else to teach you now. I have my own weapon I use, but I'm not sure how well you'd like it. You might find your own weapon to use someday! But for now, Itachi can show you about actually throwing them." Asuma said, smiling down at the boy, a bit impressed at how well he did.

They had set up targets on the trees for them to aim at. While Itachi was no expert on throwing weapons, his Sharingan allowed for some deadly pinpoint accuracy.

"Now, while you might not be too experienced, but in time, you'll be able to hit multiple targets with a single throw." Itachi said, demonstrating it by holding four shuriken, all between his fingers of one hand. A flick of his hand would send them whistling through the air, each one hitting the center of a different target. "For now, you just need to work on one." He says, handing one to Alex and showing him the proper way to hold it. Once he had it down, he looks to the targets and aims carefully. After a moment, he throws the shuriken as hard as he can! Only for it to completely miss.

"Don't worry, practice makes perfect." The Uchiha said, handing him more. For the next hour, Alex would keep trying and failing to make a single shuriken hit the target. He could barely even make the shuriken hit the tree, and when he did, it wouldn't even get stuck in the trunk. Eventually Asuma came over, both him and Itachi trying to figure out what Alex was doing wrong, but nothing would work. Eventually Alex would just give up for now to take a break.

All the while, Obito would be helping the other boys, but occasionally glance to Alex, wondering why he seemed familiar.

 **Lunch**

"I don't think he's cut out for this after all. The only thing he can do is hold a kunai correctly!" Asuma said to Jiraiya. While the kids were eating off to the side to take a break from training, the adults were discussing the one kid that had gotten the Hokage's interest for such special training in the first place.

"I have to agree with Asuma. He has no strength, no speed, and no skill. If he wanted to be a shinobi, he needs to be built from the ground up. It would take him years at this point to even get the other's level." Gai said, his face surprisingly serious. Kushina let out a sigh.

"I don't know what to say. I thought with how well Kina was doing, he would be advancing at least as fast as her to catch up. Four hours ago she didn't know the difference between a shuriken and a senbon. Now she's sparring against the other girls and winning."

Jaraiya rubs his chin. "This is only his first day… But it is obvious that he never had any training before. Unless his body has some sort of amnesia that made him forget any kind of muscle memory, he has to have been in place where he didn't need to train… But with his chakra reserves, it would be a mistake almost to not try training him… Well, we'll have to still test him on ninjutsu before we can give a final verdict on what to do with him."

The others nod, a few looking over to see Alex sitting a bit further away from the others, barely picking at his food.

 **Ninjutsu**

"Alright Alex, now I know you haven't had a great first day, but no one does, usually. After all, today is just seeing what you can do and showing you the basics." Jiraiya said to the boy, Alex looking down at the ground, his confidence practically gone.

"Hey, Master Jiraiya?" he spoke up, his voice a bit gravelly, as if holding in tears. "If… If I don't make it as a ninja-" He started before Jiraiya cut him off.

"Don't start thinking that way." The sage said, kneeling down and putting a hand on his shoulder. "If you don't think you'll become a ninja, then you never will. You have to tell yourself that you'll become one, no matter what. We all have to start somewhere. You're just a bit later than the others. But if you put your mind to it, I'm sure you'll do great." He said, doing his best to help cheer him up. "Now, come on. You've still got ninjutsu to work on. I bet we just saved the best for last."

With that, Alex nodded, looking up at the older man. His eyes almost blazed with determination, something that made the sage smile. "That's the spirit! To start, you want to make this seal with your hands." Jiraiya says, beginning to go through the basics, explaining the ins and outs of ninjutsu to him. He goes through, telling him about the different signs used to help form and manipulate chakra, and of the different ways chakra can be used. Alex listened to every word he was told, doing his best to memorize it all.

"Now, before we start any actual ninjutsu, we need to see what your affinity is for. Kina was tested earlier and she an affinity to wind. Here, take this, hold it in your hands, and focus your chakra into it." He says, handing Alex a piece of paper. Closing his eyes, he concentrates, trying to feel the flow of chakra inside him. After a short while, he opens his eyes and looks at the paper.

"That's not right…" Jiraiya mutters, narrowing his eyes, staring at the paper. It didn't show any of the normal signs of an affinity. Instead, it was pitch black.

"Here, try it again. Might have just been a bad one." He says, handing Alex another one. Luckily he brought more than just two in case one of the other kids hadn't been tested. However, when Alex tried again, it only gave the same result.

"Hold on…" Jiraiya pulled out one for himself, using his chakra on it. It worked like normal. "Alright… Well, affinities don't mean you can only use that element. Just shows what will be easier for you. We can try again some other time. For now, let's just try using some techniques. For the Academy, you have to learn certain E-Rank techniques, but it's not uncommon for someone to know something a bit higher. Here, try this one." Running through a few hand signs, making sure to go a bit slow for Alex to see which ones they were, he turns towards the open area away from everyone, shooting out a large ball of fire.

"Now, yours might not be as big, but the signs are the most important part." Alex nods, going through the signs as best he could, attempting the technique, but to no avail. Jiraiya, already seeing Alex's spirits going down, quickly did his best to cheer him up. "Don't worry! It's just a bit of an advanced technique. Maybe fire isn't your affinity, so you would just need to train. How about we try another element?"

Alex didn't seem convinced, but he was willing to try. But as much as he did try, he couldn't get a single technique to work. Jiraiya thought of as many low-ranking techniques to try, but even if Alex got the signs right, nothing would happen. Even trying some of the techniques that he would need to use to pass at the Academy, he couldn't get anything to go right. Eventually, Alex just fell to his knees on the ground.

Jiraiya didn't know what to say. Nothing would work. Maybe he was a lost cause after all. All the others could do some type of technique already, even Naruto who had to have etra training in his chakra control. Looking around, Jiraiya saw the others finishing up. When he managed to lock eyes with Kushina, all he could do was shake his head.

"I'm sorry kid." He said. "I tried my best." He really did. Alex was only a kid after all. But what could they do? They can't have people giving him special training all the time. Jiraiya let out a sigh before beginning to walk away.

"Why…?" Alex said softly after a few moments, falling forward and placing his hands on the ground. "Why can't I do anything…? I… I don't want to be useless… I want to protect her…!" Jiraiya stopped, turning around to look at him.

"Kid…" He began, but Alex didn't seem to hear him.

"All I want, is to be worth something. I don't know what to do. Where did I come from? Why am I here? Why? Why? Why!?" He began to slam his fist into the ground. At this point, the others noticed what was going on, watching him silently, none of them sure what to say or do.

"Why didn't those guys kill me before? Why wasn't I left to die? I'm useless! I couldn't do anything then, and I can't do anything now!" He began to yell, Kina walking forward towards him.

"Alex-" She tried to call for him, but Jiraiya stopped her.

"Wait. Something's happening." He said, looking up. The sky was becoming darker, with the wind beginning to pick up, and while it wasn't completely visible, something was forming around Alex.

"I want to help them! I don't want to just stand by and have them risk their lives for me!" Alex yelled out louder. Something was obviously wrong to everyone at this point.

"Get the kids back!" Jiraiya yelled, the older among them stepping in front of them, putting up the guard, not sure of what could happen next. Kushina ran over to Kina and Jiraiya.

"Kina, you have to get back!" She told her, only for Kina to stay put.

"I'm not leaving him!" She shouted, eyes locked on Alex's form.

"WHY!? WHY!? WHY!? USELESS! USELESS! USELESS!" Came from Alex, hitting the ground with each word, the earth beginning to shake… Or was that just him hitting the ground? Suddenly, Jiraiya felt something.

"Everyone, get down!" He yelled before quickly grabbing Kina and Kushina, the other instructors and kids dropping to the ground just in time as a bolt of lightning hit Alex's form, a shockwave emanating out from him, trees falling down like dominos around them, threatening to send them all flying away. The only sound they could hear was Alex's screaming.

How long it lasted, they couldn't tell, but the next thing they knew, it all stopped. One by one, they got up from the ground. The training ground was a mess. Looking over, Jiraiya saw Alex slowly rise to his feet, before turning to everyone.

"Was that… a jutsu?" He asked, just as confused as everyone else. He seemed completely fine as well. There was a yellow flash of light besides Jiraiya, Minato looking around worriedly.

"What happened? Is someone attacking?" He asked. Not seeing anything wrong, but seeing that something had happened to Alex from the fact that he was in the center of the debris, he looked to Jiraiya. "Don't tell me." He said, the sannin pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing.

"Minato, we need to talk. All of us."

* * *

Author's Note

And so concludes the third chapter. I liked this one a bit more than my other two, honestly. I tried to find more situations that would allow for a good amount of humor while still going along with the story. I know humor is more of a subjective type of thing, but I do hope it goes well with others.

As for that little event in the end, I know what it looks like. "You just made him look bad, did something, and now he's going to be OP!" I'm just going to give you a small hint. That didn't make him immediately stronger. At some point, yes, he will be overpowered as fuck, but I don't just want to give it to him like that. And I also don't want to use the 'emotions are where my powers come from' trope, so that's another hint to anyone trying to figure out what's going on before it's explained. Which, by the way, will be in the next chapter!

Stayed tuned to find out what happened, and maybe the reveal of an actual antagonist?

Until next time!


	4. A Universal Threat

Author's Note

You know who's having fun? I'm having fun. I'm having so much fun that I'm typing up chapter 4 here while chapter 3 is currently still waiting to be available on the site. That's how much fun I'm having.

I do hope people enjoyed the last chapter. It didn't take me too long, but I had a lot of fun writing it. In case you want to know my writing process, 75% is made up as I go along. I've got things in mind that are planned to happen at some point, but otherwise, I'm just doing my best to make sure it all comes together.

I do hope more people enjoy this new chapter, and I would very much appreciate any kind of feedback. I don't just want positive feedback, I'll take negative feedback too! Tell me how bad my story is and what makes it bad. Need to include the second part though. Saying its shit isn't helping anyone.

On with the story!

* * *

Chapter 4: A Universal Threat

 **Later That Evening**

Minato's forehead was pressed squarely to his desk. All around him were shinobi who had been at the training ground when that shockwave hit town. Nothing serious was damaged, but the rumbling of the earth and the lightning strike certainly put people in a panic.

And Minato was not happy with the cause.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me…" He said, voice muffled from the desk before sitting up and running his hands through his hair, revealing a very red mark on his forehead. "So, let's go over this one more time. Alex couldn't do anything, so he got upset. While he was upset, he began yelling and hitting the ground in rage. Next, he was hit by a bolt of lightning that caused some sort of earthquake or shockwave that was felt for almost ten miles around him. When it was over, he was completely fine. This part we are all sure of, correct?" Minato looked around, watching everybody nod their head.

"Alright, good. Now, someone explain to me why out of everything, what the fuck kind of kekkei genkai does he have?!" He almost yells. No one said a word. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Minato let his head hit the desk. This had been going on for the past half hour.

After he arrived, he was given a quick rundown of what had happened. Immediately, he ordered for all the kids to be taken home. However, none of them were allowed to say what has happened yet as they don't want to cause people to go into a panic. Alex and Kina were the only two brought, Kina only because she wanted to make sure that the other was okay. They spoke to Alex alone, leaving Kina outside the office, where they got his side of the story. Apparently when he was hit by lightning, he had a vision.

 **Flashback**

 _Holding his head, Alex looked up and around him. He felt something hit him, but he didn't feel anything at all. All around him was darkness, except for one figure with his back towards him._

" _Goddammit, how'd I fuck this up? I had this all planned out. This was all supposed to be fun. Now? Now it's all going down the shit creek and no one has a paddle…" He muttered to himself._

" _Hello…?" Alex said, causing the guy to turn around. He had no visible face as far as Alex could tell. He just wore a robe and some kind of mask that spiraled inwards to what appeared to be an eyehole. With another eyehole cut out for the other eye. "Who are you?"_

" _Ah! There you are. Look, I don't have much time, but I'm sorry. I fucked up. Or more specifically, someone fucked me, and they fucked you too." He makes a motion as if running his hands through his hair. "You're supposed to be stronger than the other kids your age. And you're supposed to get even stronger, but someone took that from you at some point. Worst part is, you can't just take it back and even worse news, if you don't get it back, I'll never be able to come back."_

 _Alex was a bit overwhelmed by what they were saying. He didn't understand any of it, in fact. "So…" He tried to think of something to say, but he was interrupted._

" _Alright, so what you had was taken from you within the past few weeks when you were wandering around. I don't know how, but I do know that it will take them a while for them to actually become any sort of problem. If you don't take them out and get back that power, it could mean the end to this universe. For now, I'll be trying to give you back as much power as I can, but you'll still need to train because it will take a while for you to get to your peak as well. If you rely on me giving you power to get stronger, you won't stand a chance in the end." Alex gulped but nodded._

" _Good! Now, I'm not going to give you a power boost, just unlock a few limiters I put in place. If anyone checks on you, you should be back to how you were when you first woke up, but if you go back to training, you should do as well or way better than the others your age. But don't try to fight someone too much more experienced than you, because this is all I can do for you. If I give you too much, I'll disappear. But, since I do need you to take back the power… I'll just throw in something a little extra. Now, go out there and kick some ass!" They say, Alex blinking. The person spoke so fast, he could barely understand what they were saying._

" _Wait, what?" Was his only response before he woke up on the ground._

 **End Flashback**

After that, they tried asking him what the person meant by 'little extra', but he didn't know. Eventually he tried to focus and try manipulating his chakra in various ways. Not only did Alex find it a lot easier to do, but he somehow used his chakra to create a physical object, specifically a silver orb, leaving them speechless. Eventually, the Hokage had to ask Alex to leave the room, to which he did, leading them to the current discussion.

There was several minutes of silence as they waited for the Hokage to speak again. Eventually, he looked up from his desk, the expression on his face saying that he needed a drink.

"Alright, so, he has an ability that we don't understand, and he'll do pretty well as a ninja. That's great news. Right?" Jiraiya tried to lighten the mood, but all he got was a dark look from Minato.

"That's not the main problem. What I want to know, is why he's here. Who is he? Where did he come from? How did he get here? What in Kami's name are we supposed to d-" His voice grew louder before he eventually stopped, eyes widening in realization. It couldn't be, could it?

"Lord Hokage?" Someone spoke, but he wasn't paying enough attention. He was trying to figure out how best to explain this to everyone. But, he might not be the only one.

"You just figured it out as well, didn't you, Obito?" Minato asks, looking over to the Uchiha. Everyone turned to him as he sighed.

"I thought I was crazy for thinking it, but I had my suspicions." He admits, walking over to the desk. "His voice is similar, his manner of speaking is similar, his posture is similar, and even for the short while I saw him, I can tell his very demeanor is similar. I think they should know, because we do owe him." Minato let out a sigh and nodded, everyone looking at him questioningly.

"Everyone, be aware that this is an S-class secret, not to be shared with anyone until further notice. Understood?" Everyone nodded at once. "Good. Now, this is about what really happened during the Kyubi attack. The official story is that an unknown individual incapacitated Obito, then split the Kyubi in half, sealing half in my son. That it true, but there were a few parts left out. One, was he called himself 'Kami', and while I did not feel in the presence of a god, he did split the Kyubi in half. The other part is that he said to repay him, in ten years, we were to accept two children as shinobi of our village and take care of them."

It wasn't hard for the pieces to click together for everyone in the room.

"So, the boy and girl in that lobby were sent from someone who called himself god, hm?" Jiraiya said, holding his chin. "But why would you bring that up?"

"Because from the story Alex told us, the person that spoke to him sounded just like the same man from ten years ago. Whether he was talking to him from somewhere else or he's part of him, I don't know, but Alex got his power from him." Minato replies, his face turning grim. "That leads to a disastrous problem."

"If someone stole what power Alex had been given before, than that means somewhere, someone's running around with that power. We don't know how much power that is, how long it will take before they become a problem, who they are, or where they are." Itachi spoke up, eyes closed and arms crossed. Minato looked down.

"That's just as I was think." He said, closing his eyes. The room around them seemed to grow dark as they realized the gravity of the situation. There was a long pause before someone decided to speak up.

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Asuma was the one to break the silence, Minato letting out a heavy sigh.

"For now… We wait. This is information cannot get out to everyone immediately. I will talk to a few select individuals who aren't here about this, but the rest of you must never mention this to anyone outside of this room. This is a threat to not just the village, but to everything we may know. However, we still do not know all the details, so until we know more, we can't act properly. If any of you learn of anything that may be of relevance to this situation, let me know immediately. Do not pursue it yourself. We need to learn more about threat first. Is that understood?" Everyone was in agreement, saluting him.

"Good. Now, next on the agenda. How do we explain what happened at the training ground to the kids?"

 **The Next Morning**

After the meeting, Alex and Kina were escorted home where Kina went to bed almost immediately, exhausted after the day's events. Alex, however, had trouble going to sleep with the thoughts of what the man's words meant. Eventually he decided to mess around with his new ability to get used to it and see what all he could do with it until he eventually passed out. He was awoken to someone busting his door open, Alex jumping awake. The next thing he knew, there were two kunais on either side of his head, almost pinning his ears to the wall.

"Huh. Well, you're a bit faster now." A familiar voice said. Looking to the source, he saw Anko standing in his doorway. "I'm only here for Kina. You're to go to Training Ground 3. Have fun~!" She said before vanishing. Alex really hoped this wasn't going to be a daily occurrence.

 **Training Ground 3**

When Alex arrived, he saw no one around. The only thing that stood out were three training posts in the center. Walking towards them, he took a look around the area, admiring the place until something immediately seemed wrong. Panicking, he jumped just in time to avoid being swallowed by the ground, but the force of his jump completely surprised him, causing him to hit the ground and roll a small ways. Looking up, he saw Jiraiya knelt down with his hands on the ground before standing up.

"Well, seems you really were at a disadvantage yesterday. But all that was just a setback. Now, your real training begins. You won't have someone training you every day, but we're not just going to leave you to learning all the basics yourself. You're the farthest behind in skill, but you need to be ahead. However, you must not mention that conversation you had yesterday with that man. Not even to Kina, understood?" Jiraiya spoke as he walked closer to Alex, stopping just in front of him. Usually the sage was relaxed and carefree, but today, he was more serious than ever.

Alex got up slowly from the ground. "Anything it takes to get stronger, I will. I've been given power to help not just Kina, but everyone here. There is someone out there who could be a threat to everything. And it's all my fault. I have to take responsibility to stop them whenever the time comes, but I won't be able to do it all alone." He said, holding up one hand to the sage.

Jiraiya was a little taken aback, but he couldn't help but smile as he shook his hand. "I thought you're supposed to be a kid!" He said with a laugh, lightening the mood a bit. "Now, if you're going to graduate with the rest of your age, you're going to be very busy. After you've been caught up in the basics with everyone else, you're on your own. However, I am very interested in that ability of yours. Why don't I help you figure out what you can do with it?"

Alex couldn't help but grin and nod, excited for what he could learn.

 **Elsewhere**

Inside a cave, far from Konoha, a person sat alone, shrouded in the darkness.

"Well, they think they've figured it out, hm? I can't wait until they realize how wrong they really are…"

* * *

Author's Note

Aaaaaand I think I'll end it here. This is a lot short than the last one and is probably uploaded on the same day, but I wanted to get this part done already and to make up for the other day when I didn't post. Hopefully this was full of enough development that the next few chapter could be full of filler!

Don't worry, I don't like filler. Instead, we'll be skipping straight to graduation since I'd rather show off Alex as more of a real ninja than a ninja in training.

Also, I do want to let people know that I am aware they graduate at around 12-13 years old, but the graduation year will be one early just because of time constraints. And while there is a jump next chapter, there will be still be more until they reach a certain point in time.

I know it's taken about four chapters for the actual conflict to be established, and I don't feel like it's heavy enough on the main character. Jiraiya has had a pretty big role, and that wasn't my full intention, it's just something that made the most sense to me for now. He won't be as prominent in the future, especially when Alex is able to know how to best train by himself.

But that's it for now. I hope you guys enjoyed, and if you did, make sure to leave a review about what you liked!

Until next time!


	5. Genin It Together!

Author's Note

Welcome back to another chapter. I do hope people are enjoying the story. I haven't received any feedback, but there are still people reading through, so I do take it that there are a few people enjoying it, and I do want to say thank you for taking the time to read my story.

That's all I had to say for now. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 5: Genin It Together!

 **One Year Later, Hokage's Office**

"Alright, we have gotten teams one through six situated, and team nine is still in circulation. However, we still have eleven genin to divide up and…" Minato looks up from his desk at the various jonin gathered around him, as well as Jiraiya and Tsunade.

"Too many instructors…" The Hokage said with a sigh. Why did everything get so much more difficult when any of these kids were involved?

Over the past year, a certain group of upcoming Genin had taken the older ninja by surprise. Their skills differed so much from the others in their class that they offered a more advanced graduation exam for team placements, and they all still passed. While Minato didn't enjoy the extra paperwork, he couldn't help but be proud that a lot of those students were only so motivated because of his own son. All but two of them, who while they were friends, ended up finding their own motivation to get so far.

That brings him to the current situation. Among this group were his own son, the next Uchiha prodigy, the Hyuga heir, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, a kunoichi who showed promise in medical justu, two heirs to some of the best tracking clans in the village, and then there was the two wild cards. Letting out a sigh, he looked down. How was he supposed to divide them up?

"Alright, let's start with the Ino-Shika-Cho, since they've requested to carry on their parent's legacy." The way they were having to divide the kids up was fairly unorthodox, especially since they couldn't make 4 teams of three with only eleven graduates. Several stood forward, but while a few would be good candidates, there was one that stood out.

"Ah, Asuma Sarutobi. I think you'll be a fine choice." He said, noticing him among the crowd. The Sarutobi smirked and stepped forward.

"Thank you, Lord Hokage." He replied, a few of the others wanting the position taking their leave, a few others staying to see if they could get another team.

"Next… after some previous deliberation, in the next team is to be made up of Hinata Hyuga, Kiba Inuzuka, and Shino Aburame, as their skills combined would make them one of their best tracking teams we've seen. Any takes for their team?" Already a few more people left, wanting the Hyuga but not with the other two at the same time, or just not wanting one of those genin on a tracking team. Looking around, Minato again saw many good candidates, but there was a clear choice to him.

"Kurenai Yuhi, I believe your genjutsu would help for capturing them." The red-eyed woman widened her eyes before nodding.

"Thank you, Lord Hokage." She stated, a few more ninja leaving, a few groaning. Minato was about to speak again before someone stepped forward to speak.

"Hokage-sama, I do not doubt Miss Yuhi's prowess, but I would ask you to reconsider. For a tracking team, it would only make sense for their leader to be one as well, no?" Hizashi stated. Minato was a bit surprised that Hinata's uncle would volunteer for the position. The relations between Minato and the Hyuga's council have been a bit strained after ridding the branch family of their seal, even though he and Jiraiya had made a new seal that would keep the secrets of the Byakugan while not being something they could exploit.

"I do understand the concern, Hizashi. I do understand, but I also feel that her genjutsus would also help them train against other users who would trick their senses. You can always request to be a substitute and assist in training." The Hokage replied, Hizashi nodding and stepping back, looking over to Kurenai who gave him a small smile and a nod before leaving to discuss an arrangement.

"Now then, we have five genin left. Since there are no genin left in reserve currently, there will only be one team left. I have not decided on what to do with whoever is leftover, though. Do be reminded, that you will have a lot of responsibility when it comes to leading any three. Not only do you have my son as well as the Uchiha prodigy, but we have the most promising kunoichi from a civilian family, and of course Alex and Kina, who's skills have been shown to be both dangerous and unpredictable at such an early age." Looking around, he saw that many jonin had already cleared out, leaving him with only four willing to take the role.

"Due to the… unorthodox way we have been doing this and how no exact combination of them seems to be better, I'll allow each of you to say who you would like to have a team of and what you would be able to do for them."

The first to step forward was Kakashi. "Sensei-, I mean, Lord Hokage. I would like to have Naruto, Sasuke, and Kina. I would be able to teach Kina more in kenjutsu, but would also be able to help Sasuke when he gets his Sharingan, as well as teach Naruto a good variety of techniques."

"I would like Kina, Alex, and Sasuke on a team." Itachi said, stepping forward. "The three of them already know more advanced techniques than any of the other genin, and I would be a bit more suited to help Sasuke when he gets his Sharingan."

"I think Kina, Sakura, and Naruto would be a better team. I would not only be able to teach the girls medical jutsus, but I could also teach Sakura my own fighting techniques, making the three of them not just powerful in combat, but able to get back into the fight quickly with all three of them being able to heal quickly." Tsunade said next.

Jiraiya was the last to step forward. "After hearing what you all had to say, I think I've thought of a better solution." The sage said, making the others turn to look at him in confusion. "Alex and Kina have gone past what we could think they could achieve at their age. Not only that, we know the least about them. However, we not only know the strengths and weaknesses of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, but we already have people that could help each of them. I propose we put the three of them on a team together, but alternate between having them train as a team and training under someone. Tsunade would help Sakura, Itachi and Kakashi would both be able to help Sasuke, and I would be able to help Naruto."

Minato nodded slowly, hands crossed in front of him. "I see… that does make sense… However, I don't see anything special that the three as a team could bring." To that Jiraiya smirked, reaching behind him, taking off his scroll, but it wasn't the same one he usually took around with him.

"Well, when Orochimaru was ambushed, he left a few important things behind." He said, opening the scroll up to reveal what it was.

"The Snake summoning contract…" Minato said, him and the others wide-eyed in surprise.

"Yep. Naruto can sign the toad, Sakura signs the slug, and Sasuke can sign this one. If he can show how good he is as a summoner, they might even betray Orochimaru, giving us a powerful ally and leaving him with fewer options." Minato and the others couldn't really argue against that logic. Orochimaru was still out there, and the snakes were a very useful summon.

"Very well, I will agree to let the three of them on a team together. However, I would like Kakashi to lead them." The Hokage said, suprising Kakashi.

"If I may ask, Lord Hokage, why me?" The silver haired ninja asked, obviously a bit perplexed, making Minato chuckle.

"I was your sensei, I know what you've been taught and you've shown your values to have teamwork among your priorities. If there's anyone I would trust to show them the real value of teamwork, it would be you." He said, making Kakashi nod gratefully.

"Now then, it seems we've eastablished a good arrangement. Kakashi will be the team leader for Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. They will also spend time getting further training in their current focuses. Is that in agreement?" The others nodded.

"Very well, make sure to let them know tomorrow after teams have been split up. You are dismissed." He said, looking down to his paperwork to see what needed to be done next. However, the four others didn't move.

"Um, aren't you forgetting two of them?" Jiraiya pointed out, making Minato let out a sigh.

"I was going to try…" He replied, placing his head in his hands.

 **The Next Day, after Team Placements**

"Alright! We're finally real ninja!" Kiba exclaimed, displaying his forehead protector as he jumped around.

"Kiba! Settle down, we're trying to eat! Besides, we still need pass that other test tomorrow. You don't want to tire yourself out by then, do you?." Ino scolded, seated next to Sakura, Kina and Hinata. The 11 genin that many older ninja had high hopes for were all together eating lunch at a certain ramen stand. Not everyone was super keen on having ramen, but after Naruto said it was his treat, it was hard for the others to turn it down.

"Aw, calm down Ino, that's tomorrow! Besides, my sister already told me about it. It's supposed to be some kind of test to see how well you can work as a team. They should know by now that we've been together for years! The only people that might have trouble are Naruto and Sasuke." He said, pointing to the two who were already trying to see who could eat faster.

"Who could blame them? They've got the highest expectations from everyone." Choji pointed out between his second and third bowl, who he claims was to make up for those who weren't eating.

"Speaking of which, what are you and Kina supposed to do tomorrow? You two were put into a special arrangement, right?" Shikamaru asked Alex, looking up from their game of shogi. They were joined by Shino, the three of them not being too hungry.

"We were told that we're supposed to be a partial reserve. If another team want to go on a mission that might be a bit harder than they can handle, then we're to help them out. Tomorrow, we're to go with Team Guy for a mission." He says before looking down and noticing that Shikamaru put him into an unwinnable spot. No matter how close to winning he got, he always seemed to lose.

Letting out a sigh, he looks over to Shino. "Hey, you want to play a round?" He asks, getting a slow head shake in response. Alex stared at him a moment and blinked.

"You know, I don't think I've ever heard you talk." Shino just stared back, unmoving. Maybe not even blinking. Shrugging his shoulders, Alex started to reset the board for another game.

"I still can't believe you got both Naruto _and_ Sasuke." Ino said, the four girls moving in closer at their table to whisper. Sakura blushed some.

"You can't complain, you were the one to convince Shika and Choji that you guys needed to be on a team!" Sakura replied.

"I know that. But didn't you hear what Alex said? If you guys take on a hard mission, that's _three_ of the cutest boys our age!" Ino shot back, Kina frowning unconsciously.

"I-I think you guys hit a nerve there." Hinata said before giggling, the other girls looking to Kina and bursting into giggles as well.

"What? What!?" Kina asked, not sure what they were laughing about. After a few moments, Ino calmed down enough to speak.

"Are you still going to deny it? It's been obvious since day one that you like him. And now you're both on the same team practically, it's meant to be!" She said, trying to contain herself.

"I've said it, like a million times! He's like a brother to me! That's like me saying you like Shikamaru or Choji." That got Ino to be quiet, letting out a huff.

"Touche." She said, the girls going quiet for a few moments. "Oh, Sakura."

"Hm?" The pinkette looked to Ino, tilting her head.

"Think you can ask Lady Tsunade that if she had the time, if she could teach me some healing jutsu too? Since I can't use my family's technique on someone unless they're restrained, I want to have something else that I'm able to do and not be totally useless."

"Oh, yeah, sure!" Sakura said with a smile. A bit over a year ago, Ino and Sakura wouldn't have been so serious about their ninja careers, but after Kina came along, they realized they weren't taking it serious enough. It only took one week since she began for Kina to begin overtake them to the point where they felt they couldn't spar with her. Eventually, Sakura decided to train harder, asking Tsunade for tips since she admired her, while Ino decided that she would make sure that the Ino-Shika-Cho trio better than the last one, learning and practicing techniques that would help support her teammates.

In return, Shikamaru and Choji began to feel left behind. Not only was Ino pushing them more, but so was Naruto, albeit in a more friendly way. While their parents were a bit surprised when their sons asked them to teach them more, they couldn't have been more proud.

Kiba was one of the most interesting developments. His desire to improve came from his developing a crush on Kina and asking her out. Surprisingly, she agreed, but on the condition that he beat her in a spar… which only took her a few moments to knock him out cold. After that, he began training in order to beat her again for a date, but eventually he began doing it because he started to have fun training. Now, he's almost always ready for a fight, a trait that might not have been necessary, but an improvement in his family's eyes.

Shino…

Hinata was still as shy as ever, but she was very confident in herself. Ever since the clan's Caged Bird Seal was abolished, her father and uncle had never gotten along better, and her relationship with Neji was one of both respect and as family. As she grew up, she was able to surpass her cousin, but even through his sometimes cold demeanor, he kept up a bit of a family rivalry to encourage her. However, like many others, she was inspired by Naruto, who always did his best to cheer anyone up.

As for Naruto and Sasuke, they were both the best of friends and the bet of rivals. Everyone expected them both to do great things, Naruto's father being the Hokage, and Sasuke being the Uchiha clan head's second child as well as the brother to Itachi who was the most impressive prodigy in years. They started off just being competitive with each other, trying to outdo the other. Eventually they began to spend time with each other, and began to have mutual respect to each other.

It also was no secret in the village that Naruto had part of the Nine-tails sealed inside him. At first, there was outrage when Minato told everyone that Kushina's child had the Nine-tails, but when he decided to reveal that he was the father as well as explaining things more clearly to the people, they understood that Naruto wasn't the demon and could simply just use its power. Of course, that then lead to the village council attempting to take Naruto away to make him into a weapon, but Minato had enough supporters that it was not only denied, but they were able to remove corrupted members of the previous council and form a new one, with Hiruzen Sarutobi there to help keep things in check.

The new genin finished up their lunch and decided to head their separate ways by teams to discuss what the test could involve and how they could handle it. Alex and Kina, not having a test, instead walked home together to get ready for their first mission.

 **Later that Evening**

Ever since Alex had been given his new ability, he spent a lot of spare time messing around with it to see what exactly he could do. Most of the time, he would lounge on the couch in the main room of their small house, idly tossing around a silver orb as he did now. It was made made from his chakra and he's come to use as his main weapon of sorts, able to use it for various attacks. After a while of tossing it, he might decide to make it hover above him as he looked up, mentally manipulating the chakra to turn it into various other shapes. Even after a year of working on his ability, he still feels like he had barely scratched the surface.

"Your body isn't going to get trained if you just lie around." Kina's voice said from out of nowhere, making Alex jump and lose his concentration, the orb hitting him in the head and rolling to the floor.

Sitting up, he rubbed the spot where the orb landed, about to retort before stopping when his eyes landed on her. She had obviously been outside doing some practice with her weapons, her skin lightly glistening with sweat, caught in the lowering sun outside. She had let her hair down to cool off, wearing shorts and a tank top that showed off her midriff now that she had finished. Alex also couldn't help but noticed that she had developed a bit more in her chest than he had realized.

"What? Did that orb make you lose your memory again?" She asked, putting her hands on her hips. Alex quickly shook his head.

"No, not at all! I would never forget you! I mean, uh…" He blabbered, before just shutting his mouth.

"Uh-huh… Whatever you say. Now scoot over, I'm tired." She ordered, Alex obliging if no reason other than there not being another place to sit. Plopping down next to him, she pulled her feet up under her before leaning over, resting her head on his shoulder. It's been something they had ended up doing several months ago. It happened by accident, but when neither found a reason to complain, they just kept it up every so often.

"As fun as it's been to train with friends and everything, we're finally going out on missions. Soon all of this will become constant life or death situations that will repeat every day…" Kina said, Alex tilting his head as he looked at her.

"Right. But I haven't forgotten my promise. I'll make sure to keep you safe. I was a bit worried we were going to be on different teams and it would be harder to do that." He said, Kina swatting his arm some before closing her eyes.

"That's not what I mean. I'm just a bit disappointed because this means we won't be able to have any more fun. We have responsibilities to take care of now. I just wanna…" Whatever she was going to say was cut off as she fell asleep in the middle of her sentence. Alex couldn't help but let out a light chuckle, about to move her to her room, but noticed she had her arms firmly wrapped around one arm. Not wanting to wake her already, he grabbed a blanket nearby and threw it over them both, using his orb to turn off the light before going to sleep as well.

 **The Next Day**

Alex woke up in a new position on the couch. Sometimes he moved in his sleep, but this was a bit hard to tell how it happened. He knew he had fallen asleep laying against the back of the couch, but now he felt his head on the armrest, his body laid across the couch. Opening his eyes, he saw the Kina had also moved during the night, now lying on top of him, her head resting on his chest. Not wanting to disturb her, he simply waited. Raising one arm, he gently began to run his fingers through her messed up hair, hearing her murmur something incoherent before noticeably relaxing.

Feeling the presence of someone watching him, he used his other hand to flick a finger up in the direction of the presence, turning his head slowly to see Anko, frozen with her hands in the air, several silver kunai poised to strike her in multiple fatal areas. Seeing him turn to her, she gave a sheepish smile, making Alex give off a sigh before giving her a look that said 'Wake her and die.' While Anko took threats fairly lightly, she learned that Alex was among the few who she should take seriously.

At first, it had been Alex's hell in the mornings to find out that Anko was assigned to look after the two. She wasn't too thrilled herself, enjoying Kina's company but not so much for Alex. For months, she woke him up every day with a knife an inch from his face while making sure to be gentle with Kina. After Alex had begun to have enough of the constant rude wake-up calls that one Saturday prank to wake him up on his day off ended up with her being pinned to a wall for several hours.

But what made her fear his threats was from when the three of them were heading home one night from a day of shopping when they were ambushed by a group of thugs. They knocked Alex out briefly, grabbing her and Kina and kidnapping them, taking them to an abandoned storage place in a more run down part of the village. While the girls would have usually been able to handle themselves, but they were drugged and tied up, possibly so that they could be transported out of the village. Anko woke up at some point, witnessing Alex walk in, but from there, much of it was a blur.

The one thing she wouldn't forget would be how calm he would look while the killing intent of a demon came from him. However, Alex would deny something like that ever happened and Kina had no recollection of that night, but Anko would swear on her death bed that it happened.

Eventually, Kina would begin to move, showing she was waking up. A flick of Alex's wrist, and the kunai came together into a ball, before moving it to the side. Eventually Kina would sit up, looking around a bit bleary-eyed, seeing Alex calmly waiting beneath her with Anko to the side, seemingly drenched in sweat.

"What'd I miss?"

 **A Couple Hours Later**

After Alex and Kina got ready, Anko led them to where teams would be assigned missions, and where they would also be told to go to whenever they were to help another team. They walked with a small sense of pride, now wearing their forehead protectors to how that they were real ninja. Kina wore hers similar to Ino, tying it around her waist while Alex had decided to loosely wear it around his neck. Instead of going in with them, she just directed them towards where they needed to be before leaving. Knowing who was waiting for them, though, they didn't blame her. Entering the room, they saw that Team Guy was already there.

"Ah, right on time. I had just finished gathering all your missions up." Minato said, a stack of mission folders in front of him.

"Good morning you two! Hope you are ready to have a very youthful day!" Guy said, a bit too loud. Lee joined in as usual, but Alex and Kina learned to tune out the parts of what they said that weren't important, as most people around them had to learn to do.

"Morning! So, is this what we're going to be working on over the month…?" Kina asked, eyeing the stack of folders. Minato couldn't help but chuckle.

"Nope, these are all going to be done today!" Guy said, still in his 'nice guy' pose. Kina blinked and moved over, beginning to look through them all.

"But… these are all chores! Look, this one is weeding a garden! And this one's just delivering boxes! And since when is finding a cat a mission?" She said, Alex moving beside her to look through them.

"These are chores, yes, but they're still requests that people hired to do. Besides, all D-rank missions are focused on team building for budding teams. We can't just put you onto a C-rank without any kind of experience. Not to mention, since our treaty with the Wind Nation, we're helping their economy by directing more missions that they could handle better their way." Minato said, making Kina sigh.

"Alright… though I don't see us getting through all of these in one day." She said, making Guy laugh.

"Oh, don't you worry. We'll be done before you know it!" He said, Lee looking particularly excited while Tenten and Neji seemed to get a bit pale.

It turned out that it wasn't intended to be done in one day. They were to work together for the next few days doing them, but Kina's words had accidentally sparked a challenge in Guy's eyes. The next thing they knew, they were running through the village with several boxes each, taking care of all the delivery requests at one time. What made things worse was that Guy told them that if anyone was caught straggling, he would have them do the delivery again.

After that, they had to help take care of a few yards. There was enough so that they could pair up to tackle them and get them done as fast as they can. Again, they were told by Guy the last team would have to run 50 laps around the village before they could begin the next task, before him and Lee went to one yard. Kina and Tenten took another while Neji and Alex took the last. Not wanting to run any laps, Kina and Tenten both made use of their weapons to take care of the yard while Neji helped direct Alex into what needed to be done and Alex would make use of his orb to turn it into whatever tool was needed for the job, without either of them having to move around.

Neji and Alex finished first with Kina and Tenten finishing after them. After a while, Guy and Lee met back up, a bit surprised that they were beaten, but quickly accepted it and ran off to do their laps.

"Let's get lunch. I'm starving." Tenten said after a few moments, Kina tilting her head.

"What about Lee and Guy-sensei?" She asked to which Neji shrugged.

"They'll think about food after they've finished training. Besides, we're going to need to rest up for the last mission." He points out, Tenten nodding in agreement.

"Isn't that the cat? How hard could it be to get one cat?" Kina asked, Neji and Tenten looking at each other, as if unsure where to start a long story.

 **Later That Day**

Minato looked out the window, noticing the sun setting in the distance. Deciding that it was time to finish up, he was just about ready to leave before today's team of six entered.

"Ah! Welcome back. I was just about to leave to see how the other genins did on their test. How many did you all get done today?" Minato asked before noticing that they all were covered in scratches and had their clothing torn in various places. Kina and Alex approached the table, placing a cat carrier and a stack of twenty completed missions on it, respectively.

"I don't like cats anymore." Kina simply said.

* * *

Author's Note

And that shall wrap up today's chapter. Hopefully the site is updating my stories correctly because I saw it take maybe six hours to have the last chapter show up.

Anyways, I do hope you all enjoyed. As always, any feedback is much appreciated. I also know in this timeline, there are plenty of changes to the canon, which is partly the point, but I would like to do my best to explain differences like why a character acts a certain way, so if you have any questions relevant to the chapter or any previous chapter, feel free to ask it in a review and I'll make sure to answer it in before the next chapter.

Until next time!


	6. Ninjas Can Still Have Fun, Right?

Author's Note

With chapter five being updated onto the story, I took some time thinking about how I would continue on with the story. As much as I wouldn't want to continue doing time skips, I don't want it to be as if nothing is ever going to happen. So far it's been five chapters of just establishing characters, how things are different, relations between others, and a bit of foreshadowing.

Looking back through the events in the anime, I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't be able to use any events from part one solely because all of them wouldn't make sense for this story except the Land of Waves arc, which I feel is done to death in fanfics due to it being the first arc.

So, even though I said I didn't want to keep doing time skips, but I'll be making sure to only do one if I absolutely believe one is necessary. For example, I did one last chapter to skip through the academy because I feel like it would have been too long and drawn out, and I will be doing one now to skip the Land of Waves arc and go towards the Chunin Exams where I have more things planned.

This may make the last chapter feel useless, but I feel like I put in enough world and character development to warrant putting it in. Anyways, this is too long of an AN.

Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 6: Ninjas Can Still Have Fun, Right?

 **Three Months Later**

"Chunin Exams?" Alex asked, looking around at his friends. They'd all been given the day off from missions and training, something that had gotten maybe once every three weeks. The genin got together and Naruto suggested they have an early lunch at one of the training grounds where they could do whatever they wanted together and bring food for everyone to try.

Everyone had shown up except Naruto. The genin of team Guy were there as well, Hinata telling Neji that he and his teammates were invited as well. Lee even brought his own contribution, but no one was brave enough to even see what it was. However, Naruto, the one who suggested it in the first place, ended up being late, showing up with three extra guests.

Naruto introduced them, being Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari. Naruto explained to Alex and Kina that Gaara was similar to him, having the One-tails inside him, and that part of the peace treaty between Suna and involved Jiraiya and the Hokage fixing Gaara's seal, letting him sleep at night. Since then, the siblings occasionally visited Konoha to make sure the seal was doing its job, leading to Naruto and Gaara to become friends. The reason they hadn't been around was because they were training hard to get ready for the Chunin Exams that they were in Konoha for, leading Alex to ask what they were.

"Yeah! It's the exams you take to go up in rank. This year they're being held here, so Genin from all over are going to come by to take part. In fact, Kakashi-sensei already said we should sign up." Naruto said, a few of them talking to themselves.

"Well, if Sakura's going to be a part of it, then so am I!" Ino shouted, eliciting a groan from Shikamaru.

"You just had to say that, didn't you Naruto? Once Ino has her mind set, she'll make it happen." The Nara heir complained, but smirked to himself, interested in challenge.

"We can't let them show us up, right you two? Let's apply for it too!" Kiba said, Hinata looking a bit nervous but nodding while Shino simply nods as well.

"Yosh! I won't let your youthfulness beat mine! Team Guy will be applying as well!" Lee shouts, Tenten holding her head in one hand and groaning.

"I wouldn't mind. Should be interesting." Neji said, surprisingly agreeing with Lee.

"I guessed it can't be helped… anyways, now that everyone's here, I'll take care of the table!" Alex said, moving over a bit away from where everyone was, using his ability to make a large table for everyone to sit at. Once it was formed, he stood up, taking a moment to admire his work. "Ah, I love the practical uses of that." He says to himself, the group making their way over to take out what they brought to share, several people having used storage scrolls to do so.

Making his way over to the Suna siblings, he extended one hand. "Nice to meet you all. I'm Alex, by the way." Gaara stared at him for a moment be hesitantly shaking his hand.

"Likewise. That's a very… unique ability you have there." Gaara stated, Alex nodding and giving a sheepish grin.

"Gaara can do something like that too, but only with his sand. He even uses it like armor to protect him!" Naruto said, making Gaara shoot him a look, wondering why he would reveal that to someone he hardly knows.

Alex blinks. "Armor…? Huh, that's pretty smart. I might have to see if I can do anything like that." He says, before Naruto motions to the table.

"Well, come on! Let's eat!" He says, Kankuro already moving to the table with Temari a few steps behind him.

"Hope you don't mind that we didn't bring anything." Gaara states, Naruto shaking his head.

"Not at all! Just go right ahead and-" He pauses, tilting his head. "Huh, anyone else hear that? Sounds like music."

While Alex didn't hear anything, everyone knew that Naruto's hearing was better than others due to the Kyubi's chakra being inside him.

"No, but you tell me where it's coming from and I'll check it out. You've got a guest, plus it shouldn't take too long." He says, Naruto nodding before pointing towards one edge of the training ground. Alex took off to check it out while the two others joined the rest at the table.

Entering the wooded part, he could hear the music faintly, but just enough to hear the direction. Running silently towards it, he eventually came upon a girl sitting in a tree, playing a flute. She wore a black shirt beneath a tan tunic, a purple rope tied around her waist, and a black hat, keeping her red hair in place, one bang leading from between her eyes to the side of her mouth, the rest behind her. Her hair almost reminded him of Kina's hair, the difference being that while Kina's was dark and controlled, this girl's own was light and wild.

Eventually, she stopped playing, having noticed someone. "Who the hell are you?" She shouted to him, Alex raising one hand to her.

"Sorry to bother you, we were just out having lunch when we heard music, so I just wanted to check it out. I haven't seen you around before, are you here for the exams?" He asked. The girl furrowed her eyebrows, obviously irritated. After a moment, she jumped down in front of him.

"And why the fuck should I tell you anything?" was her response. While Alex wasn't a stranger to swearing, her way of speaking was just a little off-putting for him.

"I'm sorry if I offended you. Oh! I haven't even given you my name. I'm Alex." He says, extending one hand to her. Looking down at the offered hand she narrowed her eyes and turned around, beginning to walk away.

"Hey, wait!" He called out before hearing the sound on a stomach rumbling. "Um, if you're hungry, we have plenty of food. You should come join us." He offers. For a while, she stood there silently. Eventually she turned around, not looking at him, her face a shade of red almost similar to her hair.

"Shittier than going back there for now…" She mutters to herself before speaking up. "Alright, fine."

"Right this way, then!" He says, leading her towards his friends. She took care not to get too close, but still staying behind him.

"… Tayuya." She said, making him pause and turn around.

"What was that?" He asks, making her push him forward to keep going.

"I said my name is Tayuya, shithead. Learn to listen!" While she did act extremely rude, there was just something about her that told Alex that she was just a bit lonely.

After a short walk, they arrived where everyone was enjoying themselves by talking and eating. Noticing Alex return, a few of them paused to see who was with him.

"Sorry for disappearing like that. This is Tayuya. She was by herself in the woods, so I invited her to come join us, if that was alright. Hope there something left!" Alex said, Tayuya glaring daggers at his back. She wasn't expecting so many people. Could this be a trap of some kind?

"Of course! Come on over! Just be quick before Choji eats all the barbeque!" Kiba shouted back, making a few of them laugh. Alex found himself a spot at one end next to Shikamaru with Tayuya sitting beside him.

At first Tayuya was quiet at first, accepting food from Alex as he offered it to her from what was passed around. Everyone seemed to be having fun, talking about things that they've done and occasionally throwing a friendly insult. Slowly it began to become a contest of who could come up with the best insult for someone else there or bring up the most embarrassing thing they did. As time went on, Tayuya began to enjoy herself, especially enjoying when Ino called Sakura 'billboard brow' and when Kiba pointed out how much Sasuke's hair looks like a duck's ass.

The tipping point happened when someone, no one would be able to hear who, said the word 'fat'. Everyone froze and looked to Choji, noticeably shaking in anger.

"I'm… Big… BONED!" He yelled, hit the table hard enough that it caused all the food on the table to fly up a few feet into the air before landing on everyone there.

"You...!" Everyone turned to see Tayuya covered in what looked to be gravy and meatballs. "You… motherFUCKER!" She yelled, grabbing a handful of food to chuck at Choji, who managed to duck it but causing it to hit Naruto.

"Food fight!" Kiba yelled, grabbing his own handful of food to throw randomly. It didn't take long for everyone else to get into it, grabbing whatever was left as ammunition. Alex, deciding it would help things last longer, turned the area around them into a small arena with barriers to hide behind, even putting a 'safe zone' in case there was anything that they might not want to get damaged, like Temari's fan, Kankuro's puppet, and Tayuya's flute.

The next thirty minutes were of practically pure chaos, food being thrown around. There were no sides, it was everyone for themselves. At one point Alex found himself next to Tayuya who was laughing like she was having the time of her life, only stop and turn bright red, hitting him in the shoulder hard before running away to another hiding spot.

Eventually the food available to throw slowly ran out, everyone covered in food but still full of energy. As the firing stopped, people got up and looked around at each other, everyone smiling wide until they noticed a ball of sand in the center. Gaara was apparently using it to shield himself from getting anything on him.

At last, the real plan of the day came to action, Naruto and Alex locking eyes and nodding. Immediately getting to work. Alex knelt down, channeling his chakra through the arena he made, making it bigger and adding a few extra details to it. Naruto got to work taking out several storage scrolls and placing them around the outer rim of the arena where Alex had formed what was best described as a moat. Everyone else looked on in confusion until after a few handsigns from Naruto, the outer rim was filled with water balloons. While the food fight hadn't been on purpose, it certainly was a great way to lead into this part.

Immediately everyone understood what was going on, running to the edge to gather as many as they could before hiding again. Naruto started it off by throwing some at Gaara's sand, making him unable to use it properly. Looking around confused, he was soon hit again in multiple directions from everyone as a sort of punishment for trying to sit out last time.

The water balloon fight started off simple, everyone throwing the balloons around normally. That is, until Lee decided to kick things up a notch, taking off his weights and tossing them outside the arena. The loud noise they made when they hit the ground was warning enough that it was time to take things to the next level. No longer had it become just a fight, it became a war. Now, all that had a technique or ability that would help them in this situation would be using it, and those that didn't would team up with someone who did.

Choji used his Body Expansion to shield Ino and Shikamaru, Sasuke used his Sharingan he had unlocked a couple months prior to help him dodge, Hinata and Neji used their Byakugan to find where others would be hiding, Shino would… Kiba had Akamaru use his human mimicry so they could both throw more, Lee was practically a blur as he ran around, hitting people with the balloons before they had much time to react, Naruto was somehow using clones to both throw more balloons and shield himself, and Alex was joined by Kina and Tayuya where he would mess with the arena to make it easier for them to hit others and avoid getting hit.

Not only was this just them having fun, but they were able to do a bit of training while doing so. They kept it up for what felt like hours until they had ran out of water balloons. By now, everyone was exhausted and soaked, but no one seemed to be able to wipe the smile off their face. Luckily for everyone, Naruto had this part planned out as well, unsealing another scroll that had swimsuits for them all, even extra for the Suna siblings and Tayuya.

With Alex taking care of some make-shift changing rooms, soon everyone was redressed with their wet clothing drying on a rack, also taken care of by Alex. Cleaning up the make-shift battle area was easy with Naruto's clones, who explained that he had sneaked a look at the forbidden scroll. While his mother was very cross with him for it, his dad had thought of teaching Naruto that technique anyways.

With a bit more help from Alex and a storage scroll holding water from the hot springs, everyone was able to relax and enjoy their own hot springs. Out of everyone, Alex was among the most tired from using his ability so much today, but didn't mind it at all as he saw the looks on everyone's faces.

"So, is this how Konoha trains? Because if it is, I don't think I would enjoy training every day" Gaara asked Naruto, getting a laugh from the blonde. Since Gaara wasn't that much of a fun of water due to him using sand all the time, it took a bit of persuasion to get him to join the others.

Alex made a bit of small talk with everyone as he went around the makeshift hot springs, eventually making his way to where Tayuya was sitting alone.

"You have fun?" He asks her, getting her attention. She looks at him for a moment before looking away, her face turning red again.

"So what if I did?" She asks, making him smile. It seemed part way through all this, she no longer used a swear word in every sentence.

"I was just curious." He replied, taking a seat next to her, having made a small lip around the edge for people to sit on instead of just floating around. "Where are you from?" He asks, her giving him a glance before letting out a sigh, not seeing him just leaving her alone.

"The Land of Rice Patties." She said, not lying, just not telling the whole truth.

"What brings you here then?" She wasn't really enjoying being questioned, but she didn't want to seem suspicious.

"I'm here to cheer a friend of mine on for the exams." She says, this time completely lying. She was here on a mission, but there was no way she was going to tell him that.

"Ah, that's nice! So if you're going to be around for a bit, would you want me to show you around the village sometime?" That question had Tayuya at a loss for words. How was she supposed to answer that? Was he trying to trick her? Or was he just being nice?

"I'll…. Think about it." She says, Alex smiling and telling her where she would be able to find him.

On the other side of the springs, Ino lightly nudged Kina with her elbow. "Hey Kina, looks like you've gotta rival~" She says in a teasing voice, pointing towards where Alex and Tayuya were talking, making Sakura, Hinata Tenten, and Temari who joined them, giggle. Kina looked over and scoffed.

"Oh, please. He can do whatever he likes, I'm not in charge of him." She says, although she still glanced over occasionally at the two while she talked with the other girls

Eventually the sun began to set and the group began to disperse one by one to go home, changing out of the swimsuits and into their dried clothing. Alex told Kina to go on ahead without him since he would he to stay behind and do a bit of clean up and empty the faux hot-springs.

As he saw most everyone had left, he dried off and changed quickly before moving the water over to the nearby river and emptying out into it, then reabsorbing the chakra-construct he made. Once he was done, he felt fairly winded from the effort, but still with enough energy to get home. Before he was able to walk off, though, he noticed someone was still there.

"Oh, didn't see you still here, Tayuya. I guess I'll see you around?" He asked, one hand rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. She didn't give him verbal response. Instead, she gave him a kiss on his cheek before running off as fast as she could.

Alex was very stunned by that, but he couldn't say anything to her because she was already gone. After taking a minute or two to process what happened, he eventually began making his way back.

When he arrived home, he saw that Kina wasn't anywhere to be seen in the main room and her door was closed. She was probably just as tired as him and already went to bed. Not wanting to disturb her, he made his way to his own bed before collapsing on it, closing his eyes and letting sleep take him.

* * *

Author's Note

And so the sixth chapter comes to a close. I thought I would just make this chapter a fun one. I've got a fairly vivid imagination, so thinking it up was a lot of fun for me, and I hope it's just as fun reading it. Now some people might question my reasoning for including Tayuya out of nowhere. Well, I personally like her and wished to see more of her in the actual series, and I had to think of someway of advancing the plot a bit more, so I thought of something that makes her more relevant.

So really, she's in it now because I wanted her to be. Simple as that. Or for another explanation, it's so that they can have someone who's actually focused on genjutsu because that shit can be really effective against certain enemies.

But yeah, I'm uploading this sometime early on Halloween, so hopefully this is a bit of a treat to someone. And because the site is messing up and my newest chapter isn't showing up properly. But that's just technicalities.

Until next time!


	7. Still No Fight Scenes?

Author's Note

You know, I wrote the last chapter when I was extremely tired. Re-reading it the next morning, I couldn't tell what I was thinking. But you know what? I like it. It's weirdly out of place, but I just ended up feeling like it was a good chapter. It was a bit random, sure, but not like a 'crack' fanfic kind of random.

Anyways, that's all I wanted to say. Feel free to leave any feedback and thoughts on any part of the story. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 7: Still No Fight Scenes?

Over the next few days, Alex saw no sign of Tayuya. Instead he spent time training, sleeping, learning how to cook so they didn't have to constantly eat out, and talking with Kina. Kina was focusing on her training, visiting the Namikaze residence where she had grown fairly attached to Kushina, learning kenjutsu from her and an ANBU who occasionally stopped by. Unless they were on a mission or on a day off, they hardly saw each other until the evening.

When the chunin exams began, they were there to wish their friends luck, not participating mainly from not having an available third teammate. The others promised them to let them know how things turned out when they were finished. Until that time, Alex and Kina wouldn't be able to go on any C-rank missions, able to do a few D-ranks that would only require one or two people. At this point, they had enough money between the two of them to possibly get a bigger house if they wanted to, earning much more than they spent from going on several missions. The massive amounts of D-ranks they were able to do with Team Guy helped a lot at well.

With not available teams to help out and most of the older ninja occupied with the exams, Alex and Kina were left with almost nothing to do. Other than training, they could work a bit on hobbies they had picked up. Kina had started helping out at Tenten's family shop, learning how to craft weapons. As such as she liked her swords, they would eventually get worn out and she wanted to be able to craft her blades, as well as her own shuriken and kunai. Alex's hobby was more lazy, but a lot more taxing on him. After a while, he learned his chakra could create objects in various materials and colors. He would create artwork with his ability to sell for extra cash, but had to be careful since too much detail as well as certain materials took more out of him, but it helped him work on reduce his chakra usage. While his capacity was among the highest, if not the highest, he still wasted a lot when continuing its use over time. Only reason he was able to do as much as he did the other day was because he had learned from Jiraiya to store chakra in seals on his body, hiding them with a henge.

The day after the exams started, Kina left early to get to work, saying that she was going to be working on her next pair of swords. They weren't going to be her final set, but they were going to be a lot more helpful when fighting. Alex would have made some artwork, but he only went by every few weeks, not wanting his buyers to get suspicious of him. Lying on the couch, thinking of what to do that day, he heard a knock at the door.

He was a bit confused. Rarely anyone visited them due to how small their place was, and the few that did were familiar enough, or just didn't care, to walk right in. Getting up, he walked over and opened the door, blinking in surprise.

"Hey, shithead." A certain foul-mouthed kunoichi said, face red as she looked to one side, avoiding eye contact.

"Oh, hey Tayuya. It's nice to see you again!" Alex said, smiling wide. Tayuya seemed to grumble to herself, shrinking back before speaking again.

"You said you'd show me around this hellhole, right? Well, I might have stay here for a fucking month, so I be learn my way around." She said, still avoiding looking at him. How could she after what she did before she left the other day?

"Right, right! Well, I've got plenty of time, should we go now?" He asked, getting a small nod from her. After turning the lights off and locking the door, before joining her, offer her his arm. "Anywhere in particular you'd like to go first?"

She blinked at the gesture before she realized the implications of it. Swatting his arm away, she simply replied. "Straight." Before beginning to walk off, Alex quickly moving beside her.

The only reason why Tayuya was able to be in the village was because she managed to convince the others she was with that she found a way to spy on the village without raising any attention. In reality, she wanted to get away from them, having gone from such a large group of people that were happy to see each other to a smaller group that wouldn't blink an eye before betraying one another.

As Alex and Tayuya went around, occasionally stopping inside shops where Alex would offer to buy her something that she liked, she slowly began to feel something different than when she was in Otogakure. She didn't feel like she was only alive because she was useful for something, or that one wrong move would result in a torturous punishment. Instead, she felt… happy and safe. Even the people they passed on the street were so kind to her, a complete stranger to them. Maybe she had the wrong idea about how other people really were, and she had just been around the wrong kind of people.

Eventually the day came to an end, and Tayuya couldn't help but admit that she had fun. Up until the point where they reached Alex's house again, Tayuya had a smile on her face. When the realization hit that she would have to leave him, where she felt so safe next to, it faded away.

"Something wrong?" He asks, noticing the change. Looking up at him, she flustered, not sure what to say. ' _I have to go back to a hole in the ground with psychopaths until I see you again?'_ wasn't exactly something too easy to tell someone.

"I have to go back to a shitty hotel to share a room with about four other people. Not the most enjoyable experience." She at least was only telling a lie about the hotel part. Otherwise, she was still telling the truth. Alex thought for a moment before getting an idea.

"Why don't you stay here with me and Kina? I can sleep on the couch and you could take my bed." He suggested. He had mentioned that she was his roommate while they were out, also telling an abridged version of how they met and got to this point. Widening her eyes that he would offer her that, she looked to one side.

"Well, I mean, I don't want to impose… And they might worry about me…" She started before Alex shook his head.

"I don't think it'll be a problem. I enjoy having you around. Besides, I would need to get things ready for you, so you could run over and tell them you've got another place to spend the night." He said, smiling at her. Tayuya stood there for a brief moment before hugging him tightly before quickly running off.

"I'll be right back!" She called him. Chuckling, he went inside to start getting things ready. He noticed Kina sprawled out on the couch, popping her head up from the armrest when she heard him enter.

"Were you talking to someone out there?" She asked, lazily swinging herself upright.

"Yeah, Tayuya came by this morning, and I spent the day showing her around. I offered that she could stay here for the next month or so for the Chunin Exams so she didn't have to stay in a room with four other people for the next month. You know how those cheap hotels are, right? We had to help fix one up after all." He says, talking to her as he entered his room to go through the drawers, picking out new sheets and remaking the bed. Kina got up and stood inside his doorway, crossing her arms.

"But what if she's a spy? You don't know where she's from." She states, Alex looking over his shoulder at her.

"She from a newly formed village called Otogakure. This is the first chance any of their genin will get a chance to become chunin, and she's here to support those that are taking part. Besides, this is more of a diplomatic visit to see the village. Their Kage is thinking about coming soon to talk about an alliance since they're not too far away. Besides, what we should be able to find out from us? I don't know any village secrets." Alex rattles off the information Tayuya had told him throughout the day.

"Uh-huh. I guess you have a point there… Then what if she's trying to use you to get to one of our friends? Like Sasuke or Naruto. That would be a big benefit for their village. And even if she isn't what if she's just going to take advantage of you, just to leave you and never come back?" She points out, Alex letting out a sigh as he finishes with the bed, walking over to hug Kina.

"Look, I can tell you don't like her or trust her, but I'm not asking you to change your mind immediately. All I would like is for you to give her a chance. In the time I've spent with her, I could tell she's felt alone for a long time, something we both felt for a short time, but were able to get over it If she does betray my trust, then you'll be the first I will allow to tear her apart. Provided that she doesn't have a reason." He tells her. Kina at first tries to resist, but eventually hugs back, letting out a deep sigh.

"Alright… Fine. I'll put up with her for now, as long as you make sure you never break your original promise to me, no matter what happens, alright?" She says, Alex nodding before breaking the hug. They smiled at each other for a few moments before a frantic knocking sounded on their door. Walking over, Alex opened it only for Tayuya to rush at him, holding a metal object in one hand. Immediately Alex could hear that she was crying.

"Tayuya, what's wrong?" He asked her, the girl clutching the remains of her flute as she tried to find the words to speak.

 **Moments Earlier**

 _While Tayuya didn't want to return to the makeshift hideout outside the village, but she still had her flute that she needed to get. It was a precious memento from her late mentor who taught her how to play it, music being the one thing that kept her sane. She planned to gather the little belongings she had and run without looking back. She realized she wasn't happy here, and she could have a better life. Surely if she revealed their plans to Konoha they would grant her sanctuary, right?_

 _She was almost free. Almost ready to have a happy life with people who cared about her for who she was. All she had to do was-_

" _Where are you going this late? Didn't you just get back?" Sakon blocked the way forward. Or was it Ukon? She never could remember, and she didn't intend on doing so in the future._

" _I'm leaving." She stated, her flute clutched in one hand. She was so close, she couldn't back down now._

" _Do you hear that, brother? She's leaving us!" He stated. Turning around, she saw that the other was behind her. They always were annoying._

" _Not just him. We all did." Kidomaru said, walking out to her right, Jirobo to her left._

" _You do know what we do with traitors, don't we? You have a job to do. Until then, you're to continue following orders. If you want to leave, then we have no choice but to keep you here." The twin in front of her said, Kidomaru stepping closer to restrain her with his chakra web. In an effort to move away, she ended up bumping into Jirobo who snatched the flute from her hand before crushing it and dropping it to the ground._

" _No!" She yelled, kneeling down and grabbing the remains, the others approaching her._

" _Let her leave." A voice said, walking towards them. If Tayuya was scared before, now she was terrified._

" _Lord Orochimaru! We were just about to deal with her-" Kidomaru spoke, him and the other Sound Four dropping to one knee and bowing before being cut off._

" _I said let her leave. However…" The snake sannin stood in front of Tayuya, reaching down and grasping her by the neck. "You will play your part. Do that, and I will allow you to live. However, refuse or betray me before the time comes, and you will be dealt with. Understood?" He said, looking straight into her eyes, releasing his full killer intent at her. She wanted to nod to show she understood, but she couldn't speak or move her head. Eventually he let her go._

" _Get out of my sight." He stated, Tayuya running off back to Alex's home._

" _My Lord, I don't mean to offend you by questioning your ways, but why let her escape?" Jirobo asked, Orochimaru smirking wide._

" _Because, she knows that by playing her part, she will have no choice but to die by Konoha's forces, or return to me."_

 **End Flashback**

Tayuya eventually managed to calm down, Alex making her some hot tea to help her relax while Kina talked with her to help take her mind off things. While she didn't say what actually happened, she told them that it wasn't a rare occurrence and that she had been thinking of leaving. Kneeling down on her other side, handing her the hot drink, Alex hugged her gently with one arm.

"I'm so sorry to hear that… If you want, we can talk to the Hokage about taking you in here." He suggests, Tayuya nodding slowly.

"Sure… but not yet. I just want a bit of time to think things over. Besides, the chunin exams are going on. Wouldn't it be weird for me to change villages in the middle of them?" Alex found that reasonable, but Kina was a bit skeptical, though she wouldn't speak out, wanting to give her a chance.

"Alright, when the exams are over, we'll speak to the Hokage if you decide. I need to be excused real quick." Alex says, getting up and heading to the restroom. Kina decided to take the moment to say what was on her mind.

"Look, I'm going to be honest. I hardly know you, but you've gotten very close to someone I consider my brother. I don't entirely trust you, but I am willing to give you a chance, especially since I see this has really been hurting you. However, should you break his heart or harm him in anyway, I'll be sure to be the first to get back for him. Do I make myself clear?" Kina said, releasing some killer intent, but nothing Tayuya wasn't used to. It just showed how serious she was. Nodding, Kina smiled and gave her a short hug.

"Good! Then I think you and I will be able to become close friends." She said, Tayuya hesitantly returning the hug before going back to her drink, albeit feeling a bit nervous. As Alex emerged, he noticed the bit of tension hanging the air.

"Did I miss something while I was gone?" He asks, the girls both shaking their heads at the same time, Kina smiling innocently as Tayuya looked a bit paler.

The next day helped Tayuya a lot to forget her worries. She slept in a warm bed with clean sheets, even though they did have a particular scent that helped her fall asleep. When she would wake up, the sun would was already in the sky instead of an hour till sunrise. Alex went through the trouble of cooking up breakfast for the three of them, and went out to get some extra furnishings to make room for three people, something that Kina and Alex didn't think about until now.

Kina was also extremely helpful, surprisingly enough. At first Tayuya thought she hated her from what she told her the first night, but the very next day Kina took her shopping for anything essential she didn't have, and a few things that she hadn't been able to use back in Oto. After she got everything, Kina went on to work on her swords while Tayuya went home, finding several things different. There was a chair, television, and a few updated appliances in the kitchen part of the main room. In the bedroom, she found Alex finishing up with moving a dresser with a fairly large mirror, turning around and jumping in surprise when he saw Tayuya was back.

"Oh, you're back a bit earlier than I thought. Kina had told me how much she wanted a dresser for a bit extra storage as well as helping her when she wanted to get a bit more dressed up… whatever that means. So, I figured I get one for both you and her. Sure, you might not be staying, but I just thought it- Oof!" He let out, caught off guard as he was hugged tightly by the girl. After a few moments, she let go and cleared her throat.

"You didn't have to, though. Really. But are you sure you're not spending too much on me…?" She asked, Alex shaking his hand.

"Don't worry. Between the amount of money from missions we've gotten between us and how much my side job gets us, we're just fine." He says, not wanting to admit that he spent almost 80% of what he had saved up in the past three months. Of course, it wasn't all on her, he just never got around to upgrade the kitchen which was prone to malfunctions, as the half-burnt tasting breakfast that morning would attest to.

"Side job? How do you work being a ninja and a second job?" She asks before he laughs, waving her over to follow him to the main room.

"By being a ninja." He states, only confusing her as they sit down on the couch. Pulling the coffee table closer, he focuses some, using his ability to create a small silver orb, holding it on the table. Narrowing his eyes, he intently focuses on what he wanted it to become, orb shrinking in size and revealing a familiar shape. A few moments later, the silver would make way for various colors, until finally Alex sat back, sweating a bit and looking to Tayuya.

"It's… me." She said, picking up the small figure of herself, the detail so fine that a full size version would be confused for the real person.

"Yep! Turns out that objects I create can be reabsorbed so I can get the chakra back. But, if I don't, it becomes that object forever. Biggest problems come from holding my focus too long continually drains my chakra, and materials that are hard to find also take up more. I can't make anything out of wood, so I try to use a fake-wood material, but it's along the same lines of making silver, which, while it is the default color, is not what most things I make are made out of. Most times it's plastic or a common metal." He explains as she looks it over.

"Wow… is that all you can do though?" She asks, looking to him curiously.

"Oh, not at all. Even I haven't found out everything I could do. Whenever I think I have, I find a new way to use it. Sadly, as a ninja, I seem to find more practical uses than offense. Takes a lot of focus to use it to attack in the ways I've tried, so I've been working on making it easier." He says, her nodding before setting down the figure.

"So, do you think you can…?" she glances to her destroyed flute, Alex letting out a sigh.

"I would if I could. Sadly, I don't know how a flute works or what makes it up." He responds, Tayuya nodding sadly. After a moment of silence, Alex stands up, offering one hand to her, Tayuya looking up at him questioningly.

"We still need to get food! I know what Kina likes, but was waiting for you so you could also get what you wanted." He says, making the girl giggle some and accept the hand, standing up. Blinking, she took a moment to think to herself. Did she just giggle? Is this how she wanted to live?

"Are you okay?" Alex asked her, snapping her out of her thoughts, looking concerned.

"Yeah!" She said, answering both her own question and Alex's. Not once did she curse over the next few days, but only because she didn't find a reason to.

The next few days flew by before they knew it. Kina would work on her blades for a few hours in the morning before coming home for lunch, made by both Alex and Tayuya who wanted to help out some. Afterwards, they would all go to a training ground for some training, not wanting to fall behind after a few days of being off duty, and Tayuya wanting to also think up what she could work on until she could use a flute again.

The days normally went that way until they were given the announcement that the genin were returning from the exams and that the final round would take place in a month. Excited, they went to where they heard they were meeting up at for lunch. However, their smiling faces faded as they noticed that of the 15 friends who entered, only eight were present, and they weren't unscathed.

"Holy shit, what happened to you guys?" Tayuya asked, getting the attention of everyone who looked to them glumly, Shikamaru letting out a sigh, Choji nowhere to be seen.

"Chunin exams happened. The good news is that no one from Konoha's dead. Bad news… a couple people might not be able to continue as a shinobi." He said, the others looking down.

"Seems like we missed a lot." Alex said as he, Kina, and Tayuya sat down for Shikamaru to explain.

Round two ended up being worse than they had anticipated. Someone had infiltrated the forest on the sole purpose of killing genin. He was eventually apprehended by multiple jonin, but had to be killed. Sadly, Sakura, while not one of the victims, was wounded and had to be pulled out for treatment, though Naruto and Sasuke were able to continue on.

Before the preliminary match, Hinata and another genin by the name of Kabuto gave up, Hinata not liking the odds of fighting any of her friends. Kankuro and Kiba were paired to fight, and while it was intense, a malfunction of Kankuro's puppet caused it to shoot poisoned needles around the area, evne though he was making sure not to use them. In an effort to stop it, he poisoned himself and Akamaru, Kiba currently looking after his partner while Gaara and Temari were looking after their brother.

The worse ones were Choji and Lee who were paired off against two ninja from Oto. Choji went up against one who had a gauntlet that amplified sound as a weapon, but instead of using it to incapacitate the other, he purposely used it to cripple Choji, the sound being used to break several bones and almot rupture his organ. Since lethal force when not necessary was against the rules, he was disqualified from the finals. Lee, however, went against someone named Kimimaro who looked almost too sick to compete. However, Lee was unable to even harm him through his kekkei genkai, growing bones as both weapons and armor. Even though Lee was fast, Kimimaro was somehow faster, one technique slicing Lee's muscles in one arm and leg.

While Kimimaro's battle was being described, Tayuya seemed to tense up, wrapping her arms around herself and looking down. Shikamaru noticed it out of the corner of his eye but said nothing, continuing from there

"Now, there's going to be a finals in one month. Match-ups are Gaara and Kimimaro, Naruto and Shino, Temari and Me, then Sasuke and Neji for the first round." He ends before looking to Tayuya.

"By the way, where are you from? You're either from Suna or Oto because otherwise you'd have left, and we all know you're not from here. I don't think Gaara and his siblings recognized you either." He stated. Tayuya about to answer but Alex beat her to it.

"She's from Oto, but she's considering being a part of Konoha by the time the chunin exams are over. She hasn't been treated fairly there and no longer feels safe, so Kina and I offered to take her in." He states, Tayuya and Kina nodding to confirm.

"Alright, fair enough. But this Kimimaro person seems extremely dangerous as well as skilled. Any information on him would be helpful for us since anyone could go against him, and there's no telling if he'll hold back." He said, the others looking to her. She was silent for a few moments before looking down.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you with him." She says, the others letting out a small sigh of disappointment.

"A shame. Guess we're going against him blind except for what we already saw. Troublesome…" He said, Ino not even saying anything about his speech habit that she had tried to get out of him.

From there, they ate mainly in silence before splitting off. Those that had advanced were going to see who they could best train for while the rest either went home or went to check on those that were in the hospital, Tenten bringing the Suna team some food.

The next month seemed to drag slowly. Kina, Alex, and Tayuya did a bit of training while also visiting their friends for some small talk or to see how they were. A few they were unable to see at all, being so engrossed in their training. They all had a tough fight ahead of them, so it was to be expected. As for those in the hospital, Kankuro and Sakura were the first to recover, Sakura having used her medic skills on herself on the worst of her injury before falling unconscious.

As soon as Kankuro was on his feet, the first thing he did was visit Kiba and the recovered Akamaru, apologizing profusely and giving Akamaru a toy. After that, they seemed to get along a lot better than before, Kiba even volunteering to help Kankuro fix up his puppet.

Choji and Lee, on the other hand were a much worse for wear. Choji would have to rest for a while as his bones rehealed, then have his bones get used to his family's technique again. Lee, however, was practically on a coin flip on whether he would be able to recover fully. As it was, he wouldn't be able to use his injured arm or leg for a while, and it would take some time for Tsunade to fix his tendons and muscles properly herself.

Everyone else did their part around the village as the weeks went by. As much as they wanted to treat it as a vacation, they were still active ninja on duty. Tayuya decided to spend extra time practicing her taijutsu and throwing skills, while Alex would either watch and help, or create another piece of art to sell. Kina, however, not only managed to finish making her blades, but was already making quick work of using chakra to enhance them in battle, as well as experiment with new techniques.

Finally, the finale to the chunin exams arrived. Everyone's spirits had been lifted greatly since then, especially with the knowledge that Choji was going to be able to come back, and hoping on Lee's recovery as well. Everyone filed into the stadium, Alex and Kina finding a set of three seats as close as they could, Tayuya saying she had to take care of something and would be back as soon as she could.

They waited for the crowd of people to finish piling in, surprised by how many were attending. Off in on alcove, they could see three kages seated together. The Hokage, the Kazekage, and the Otokage were all present, the last of them having arrive this morning. All the contestants were present except for Kimimaro when the kages started a speech, beginning by saying that Kimimaro was there, but was being escorted, making people question what was wrong that he needed an escort.

That answer would come when the speech was finished and the contestants on the field, except Gaara, made their way to their own spectating room. After a couple minute, Kimimaro emerged, but something was wrong. He had trouble walking, barely making to the designated spot across from Gaara. Being asked if he was sure that he was able to fight, he nodded, although his breathing seemed to tell otherwise.

However, the match was started to the concern of others for his health. Gaara waited for Kimimaro to make the first move, but five minutes passed by with nothing. Kimimaro seemed to be getting worse, one hand reaching up and clawing at his heart. Before it could be postponed to check on his health, however, he looked up to the sky.

"MY LIFE… FOR OROCHIMARU-SAMA!" He yelled for everyone to hear before his body became covered in bones spikes before exploding, sending the spikes in all directions as the kage's viewing box burst into smoke.

* * *

Author's Note

Whew, that was long. Longest chapter so far I believe. But yes, the chunin exams didn't start off with a bang, but that doesn't mean it can't end with one. I know many people are probably disappointed by the lack of fight scenes, but I promise you, they're coming. I believe if I can get through enough in the next chapter, then I might be able to make one by chapter nine or ten!...

Yeah, maybe a long wait, but this is supposed to be a long story. I like long fanfics. Either way, I do hope you've enjoyed this chapter. Make sure to leave a review letting me know what you liked, didn't like, or that you just want more. Any kind of feedback is helpful feedback, after all.

Until next time!


	8. How Betrayal Work

Author's Note

Welcome back wonderful people of the internet! Or, however you're viewing this without using the internet. Here's where the main plot comes back into play! Oh, how I know it's been a while, but I'm serious this time. To be fair, everything could be considered plot since it moves things along. But in this case it's been very slow.

Anyways, I'm very excited to get this one out, so let's begin!

* * *

Chapter 8: How Betrayal Works

As soon as people were able to register what happened with Kimimaro, everyone did their best to avoid the bone spikes as well as sharp shrapnel that was sent everywhere. Gaara, being able to react just in time, was able to contain a hefty amount of the bone, however the pieces that weren't able to be stopped were either stuck into the walls, or ended the lives of an unlucky few that were fast enough.

There was no time to rest, either. Moments after the last of the shrapnel, members of the crowd revealed themselves to be Oto nin in disguise, immediately attacking any one around them not from Oto. The surprise attack took people off guard, but all able shinobi went straight to counterattacking them. A loud crashing noise outside the stadium signaled a giant summon breaking into the village, leaving an open gap for more Oto soldiers.

It was astounding how many shinobi were of the sound village, their forces starting off outnumbered of four to one, but their numbers grew immensely, outnumbering the Konoha and any Suna shinobi three to one. Jiraiya and Tsunade quickly dispatched their own summons to take care of the one running through the village, before jumping into the fray.

Alex and Kina did their best to work their way towards a group, Alex using several of his own created kunai to attack anyone coming towards them while Kina attacked anyone who got in range of her blades. Looking around, neither of them could spot Tayuya either, hoping that she got to a safe place.

Down on the stadium floor, it had begun to be even more chaotic than the stands as everyone used techniques that could hit both friend and foe. It wasn't much safer above, though, as Oto nin didn't have to hold back, but the Konoha and Suna nin had to refrain from causing too much damage.

Outside the stadium, the only way to best describe it was an all-out war. It became obvious that those in the stadium were considered lower tier, not using too many advanced techniques and quickly dispatched. The ones that weren't, however, were much stronger. Some having what looked to be kekkei genkai that were able to seriously harm the forces, while others were using powerful techniques that had to be dealt with immediately. As the numbers inside the stadium thinned out, more defenders would jump out to do whatever they could do.

Eventually, Kina and Alex managed to find Kakashi and Guy fighting back to back, staying back to help finish off those in the stadium. When there was finally a lull in their attackers, they approached.

"Kakashi-sensei! Gai-sensei! What's going on?" Alex yelled, the older shinobi looking at him and Kina.

"It was a surprised attack. Seems the Kazekage was right. Orochimaru tried to have him killed, but he managed to get away. To make sure the kages were safe, Hiruzen took the Hokage's place while the Kazekage used a clone. We were expecting this, but couldn't plan on how it would forth. This is a lot bigger than we thought. Not to mention, we're cut off from Hiruzen." He said, looking up towards the roof of one building, a purple cube surrounding a majority of it.

Inside the field, Orochimaru and the third Hokage were standing off against each other, but thing were going bad for the previous Hokage. Sarutobi was already feeling as if he was on his last legs, leaning on Enma's staff form as he watched his traitorous student carefully.

"What's the matter _sensei_? Feeling the effects of old age taking their toll on your body? Oh, how I enjoy that I'll never have to go through them myself!" He exclaims, launching a wave of snakes at his opponent. Running through several hand signs, he shot out a massive fireball, incinerating the snakes, but more just grew back, still coming at him. Forcing him to jump out of the way, he narrowed his eyes. Something wasn't right about his former student.

"What have you done to yourself? I may not be able to see it, but I can feel that you're tainted with something." He said, Orochimaru laughing at him.

"Oh, is it that obvious? You see, someone came to me and gave me more power. Power not just for myself…" He waved one hand in the general direction of the larger fight. "But power to spread to my forces. I now never have to gain another body. I will live forever, to master the secrets of this world! But my only stipulation was that I kill Minato Namikaze. Seems like I'll have to handle him after I'm done with you!"

He exclaimed, pulling out his Kusunagi sword and rushing at Hiruzen, swinging his sword at him, only to be block. Hiruzen didn't know how much longer he could take. The sannin was stronger and faster than he had anticipated. Hopefully he could at least stall for time.

Looking back to the battle, the sides were evenly matched. However, the kages were still nowhere to be seen, still believed to be inside the purple containment field. There was a sudden shift in the struggle, however, when a rain of kunai fell from the sky around the battlefield. At first, it was a momentary distraction, until a yellow flash began to appear all around the enemy, slowly but surely helping thin the enemy forces. At the same time, a fine shower of golden dust fell upon the enemies, before pausing in midair, then all quickly moving as one, slicing through dozens of enemy shinobi.

Everyone watched and cheered, seeing their leaders assist them in battle, pushing them back even hard, forcing their main army to retreat. Alex and Kina watched on from atop the stadium, not going to be much help down there. Feeling a pulse of a familiar energy, he looked up to the top of the tower. It couldn't be…

Jumping up towards the roof, leaving Kina behind, he saw several Anbu scattered around, frantically trying to find a way in. Inside, he saw Orochimaru and Hiruzen fighting, however his suspicions were confirmed, as every time Orochimaru casted a jutsu, the pulse appeared again. Closing his eyes, he focused on that energy, before immediately opening his eyes in shock. All of the enemy forces had some amount of power inside them. All but one.

Running to one corner of the field, he found the one person that didn't have it in them… and he couldn't believe it.

"Tayuya…?" He asked outloud, but it would be unable to reach the girl's ears, the field preventing her from hearing him. Narrowing his eyes, he places his hands on the field, closing his eyes. If he could just mix his chakra in… There!

Focusing as hard as he could, he began to pool his chakra into the field. It couldn't go through, but it didn't need to. With his chakra mixed in, he was able to create a disruption, his ability solidifying it to create a small window through the first layer.

"TAYUYA!" He yelled, the girl turning around before her eyes widening in shock, pulling her hands off the ground, disrupting the barrier.

"What!? What's going on!?" Orochimaru yelled, watching as the field began to fail, looking around to see the cause, growling as he noticed the girl who had meant to betray him being the cause. Hiruzen tried to take advantage of the opportunity to take down his former student, but Orochimaru caught him off guard, dodging just barely of the way before running the former Hokage through with his sword.

"Retreat! And kill the traitor!" He yelled to the other Sound Four who nodded, taking off. It took a moment for Alex to realize that Tayuya wasn't moving, even after given the order to retreat. Behind her, he saw one of his bodyguards prepare a launcher of some kind, aiming it at her. Before it would be able to fire, Alex would tackle her, holding her tight as they were sent flying off the roof and plummeting to the streets down below.

 **Three Days Later**

Alex awoke with a start, sitting up and looking around, panicking some. After a few moments, he managed to recognize that he was in the hospital. The next thing he noticed was Kina and Sakura to either side of him.

"You're awake!" Kina said, wrapping her arms around him tightly. The force which she held him made his entire body hurt, also finding it hard to breathe.

"Careful Kina, he's just woken up. You don't want him to pass out, do you?" Sakura asks, making Kina let go, Alex taking in a deep breath.

"What… happened?" He managed to get out, his voice hoarse and throat incredibly dry. Sakura handed him some water as Kina explain.

"Gaara saved you with his sand as best he could, but he couldn't cushion the entire fall. Sadly, between you and that traitor, you took the most of it." She said, Alex taking a moment to remember before his eyes shooting open.

"Tayuya!? Where is she!?" He asked, sitting up. Kina and Sakura both pushed him back down to rest.

"She's under arrest. She's been interrogated, but they think they've gotten all they could out of her. For now, she's going to sit in jail before her execution." Kina says, Alex shaking his head.

"Execution? No, no, no… I have to see her..." He said, trying to get up, only to realize how weak he really felt. The two girls looked at each other, Kina turning away while Sakura sighed.

"That's the thing. She only agreed to the execution sentence, but only if she got to talk to you first and have you decide." Sakura said, Alex looking down. "So you just need to rest. She's not going anywhere until you've talked with her." He nods slowly, closing his eyes to go to sleep.

Over the next few days, he was visited by several of his friends who would tell them about how things were going on around the village and how fast they were rebuilding the damages. Suna had decided to help out, with Gaara doing what he could with his sand to speed things up. Naruto visited him, the most depressed Alex had seen him. He told him how they had a funeral for Hiruzen, but that he wasn't the only kage killed. The Fourth Kazekage was killed by an enemy who had been pretending to be dead, leaving the Suna siblings fairly distraught. Gaara may not have been showing it on his face, but he was working harder than anyone else, most likely to give him something else to think of.

Kina would spend most of her time beside Alex's bed, talking with him and any visitors he got. However whenever Tayuya was brought up, he would suddenly go silent before saying he was taking a nap. Eventually came time that he was ready to go visit her. Kina told him that he was going to go alone if he did, which was fine by him. He wanted to talk to her alone anyways.

He was led by the head interrogator, Ibiki, through the prison to where she was kept. Alex was told stories about him through Anko, and he was just as intimidating as she described, but that wouldn't deter him. Surprisingly, though, Minato was there as well. Alex was to be given a time limit and when it was up, he was to let them know of what he wanted done with her.

Bringing him to a room where it would be just him and Tayuya, he was told fifteen minutes. Nodding, he entered, the door closing behind him. She was already sat at a table in the middle of the room. Walking over, he took a seat in front of her. For a minute, neither spoke. Alex wasn't even sure she knew he was there. Eventually, he broke the silence.

"Why?" He asked. That one word was enough for Tayuya to look up him before beginning to cry. She had done her best to suppress her emotions through all other interrogations, but just seeing him was what made it so that she could no longer hold back.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I couldn't refuse, they would have killed me, or use me for one of his experiments! All he said I had to do was help make the barrier, and I would be able to go! I didn't know what he was planning on doing in there! I didn't mean for them to die! I just wanted to live and be with you!" She sobbed. Her hair was messed up, her hat being taken away let it fall all over the place.

"I would have told you everything I knew! I was going to! But they stopped me before I could! I still couldn't tell you then, because they could have been following me! I was so scared of dying, I just didn't want to lose you! For the first time in my life, I felt safe! I felt happy! I just wanted to keep things that way! Please, I'll do anything to have it all back! Just don't leave me alone!" She managed to get out. After a few moments, he stood up.

"I think that's all I needed to hear." He stated before walking towards the door.

"Alex! Wait, please! I need you!" She tried reaching for him, but they had her bound to keep her from getting out. Placing his hand on the handle, he paused.

"I'll see if they can give me a week to think on it more." He stated before leaving, ignoring any further please.

"Well, that was quick. You come to a decision?" Ibiki asked, looking down at him.

"I wanted to be given an extra week to think on it. It's just a lot for me to take in." He said, the two older men looking to each other before nodding.

"Very well. Normally we wouldn't do this sort of thing… but you are just children. As cruel people may think me as, I wouldn't want to deny one's last request, no matter what it is. However, if you do decide she should live, you're going to need to make a strong case about it." The scarred interrogator said, Alex closing his eyes for a moment.

"I understand… However, I would like to make one request, Lord Hokage." He said, surprising the two older men before listening to what he wanted.

When he returned home later that day, Kina greeted him and asked him what his decision was. What she didn't expect was for him to not answer her and enter his room, but also lock it. For a few hours, Kina would try to get Alex to open up or at least say something, but nothing she said or threatened to do seemed to change his mind, making her give up. Over the week, no one would see any trace of Alex. It was if he disappeared, but they knew exactly where he was. The only times he left his room was to eat, and he would only do so when Kina wasn't home.

All of his friends were worried about him when they heard what he was doing from Kina. They each tried to talk him out, but no one seemed to get any reaction. The Suna siblings eventually left back to their village, having spent too long already in Konoha and needing to give their father a proper funeral at his home, but Alex didn't even exit to say good-bye to them.

By the seventh day, everyone began to think he had gone as far as to kill himself, when the door to his room finally opened, him rushing outside and taking off through the village. Kina was on the couch when he left, trying to get him to stop, but when he didn't she chased after him. However, something was weird. He wasn't going towards any place in specific it seemed. Eventually she saw him pass by the Ino-Shika-Cho genin trio, stopping in front of them.

"Alex left his room! You gotta help me stop him!" She said before running off after him. The three looked to each other before nodding, taking off after her. They chased him through the village, trying to cut him off whenever they could, only for him to slip away again. More and more people would notice them, and they would follow after them after being told what was going on, making it even harder. Eventually, they all managed to seemingly corner him inside the Hokage's tower. They took after him all the way to his office, bursting in to find Alex talking with the Hokage.

"I trust you you honored my request, Lord Hokage." He says, getting a chuckle and a nod from Minato before turning around.

"Now, everyone come on in. I have something I want to talk to you all about." Everyone looked confused but filed into the office. When they got another look around at who was there, all of his friends as well as instructors had all been gathered.

"Alright, let me start from the top." He began, everyone paying close attention.

A few hours later, Tayuya found herself being led to the Hokage's office. She looked like a wreck, clothes and hair disheveled, eyes red and swollen as if she hadn't stopped crying the past week. At this point, she had resigned to her fate. No one was coming for her. She didn't deserve to be saved. If she had been stronger, maybe she could have stopped the attack, and so many people wouldn't have died. This was the walk to her death sentence. All she could hope was that it was swift, even though it would have been too good of a death for her.

Arriving in the Hokage's office, she saw that it was filled with familiar faces. They were all people she had been introduced to during her stay in Konoha. All the people she lied to and betrayed. She had hoped to be counted among them as their friend, and even learn to be a better person, but it was too late for her now. The only one missing was Alex, and for that she was glad. She couldn't bear to face him again.

"Tayuya." The Hokage began, sitting behind his desk, fingers crossed in front of him. "You have assisted a criminal, someone who once betrayed Konoha. Because of him, and your assistance, not just are two kage dead, but hundreds of good shinobi. You had the chance to stop it, yet you were too afraid. We would have protected you and welcomed you with open arms, but you could not trust the village enough to do so. And because of your actions, you would be put to death." If she could hang her head in shame lower, she would have.

"However!" He continued, standing up, making her raise her head in surprise. "We of Konohagakure do not judge one solely from one action alone. We judge by one's nature and character. If were up to me or anyone else here alone, you would have been executed already. Yet, there is someone who trusts in you enough that they alone came before us all to prove your worth as a shinobi and as a person. At the same time, though, it does not excuse your actions." He said, as he walked around his desk.

"And so, we reached a unanimous decision. You are to lend your abilities and skills to the forces of Konoha for the time being, while under watch from the one who has convinced us to give you a second chance, to prove that you truly deserve it. I hope you do not disappoint me." He finished, sitting back down. Several thought raced through her head at once.

She was being given a second chance? She was going to be part of Konoha now? Who is it that she was going to be watched by? She was so distracted by her own thoughts, she hardly noticed her restraints being removed. It all clicked into place when the person who removed them stepped in front of her. That seemed to always happen when she saw him.

"Welcome to Konoha." Alex said, smiling softly at her, holding out a forehead protector in one hand and a new flute in the other.

* * *

Author's Note

Yay, happy endings! Don't you love them? Well, this isn't the end of the story, just the official end to this 'arc' I guess. But don't worry, more excitement is coming up! They can't just stop here, can they? Oh no, it's time for a bit of payback, and people are going to get serious.

As always, I greatly appreciate you reading. I hope you enjoyed it, and would love to hear what you enjoyed about it or what you didn't enjoy. Every bit of feedback helps to making my writing better for you to enjoy more

Until next time!


	9. A Turn of Events

Author's Note

You know, I'm not entirely sure why I have these notes at the beginning and end of the chapters. They don't really contribute too much. But, I do get to ramble a bit, and you don't have to read them, so there's that. If you do read them though, then thanks! You're a good listener.

Anywho, stuff happens. Let's get into it!

* * *

Chapter 9: A Turn of Events

Tayuya was stunned. She was being given a second chance? It took her several moments to process what was going on, but when she did, she accepted the headband and flute gingerly before hugging Alex tight, him hugging her back. Sadly, the moment would have to wait as the Hokage cleared his throat.

"Well, as cute as the scene is, there was something else that was brought to our attention. Alex told us that Orochimaru and his men had some sort of power. Would you know anything about that?" He asks, making the two kids break their hug, a bit red in the face.

"S-sorry. But now that you mention it, someone did meet with him privately. I don't know what they discussed, but after that meeting, Orochimaru… changed." She said, Minato raising an eyebrow.

"In what way?"

"Before, he was focused on creating an army of strong shinobi. After that meeting, he became more engrossed in his experiments and making who he had already gathered even stronger, I guess focusing on quality instead of quantity." That news was a bit unsettling to say the least.

"That doesn't make sense. The size of his forces were three times the amount of our own, even with Suna assisting us. The body count of the enemy forces ended up greater than the amount of active shinobi Konoha had before the attack." Tsunade said, stepping forward. Jiraiya stepped forward as well, placing a scroll on the Hokage's desk.

"Not entirely. My network managed to find out that our old 'friend' has hideouts scattered throughout the nations, however they weren't able infiltrate any of them." He says, looking to Tayuya for confirmation, her nodding in response.

"Right. Even though I was among his bodyguards, I never visited them all myself, nor did I visit the entirety of most of the ones I did go to. There were a few places that only he and his top spy were able to go. Why he chose him, I don't know." The Hokage nodded.

"Right, Kabuto Yakushi. He was the one who killed the Kazekage, pretending to be dead. The Kazekage was helping gather up ally's bodies, but he deceived us, assassinating him before taking off before we could stop him." The room around them seemed to darken. "Is there a hideout nearby?" Tayuya nodded.

"It's about three hours to the northeast depending on how fast you can run. He most likely retreated there, but I doubt he still would be there. It might be a good place to start looking, though." Jiraiya leaned down to whisper to Minato, who seemed to contemplate something before speaking again.

"Very well. You can start proving your loyalty by leading a team there. Not immediately, of course. It might be too dangerous right now. For now, we'll give you time to rest and get prepared. Three days should be enough to get ready. Come back here in the morning then for your team. We're limited on who we can send out in case of another attack, so I'll have to see who we will be able to send out. All genin are dismissed. The rest of you, we have a few more matters to discuss." The Hokage said. The genin all bowed and filed out.

Outside the tower, many of them took a moment to formerly welcome Tayuya, apologizing for branding her a traitor, all but Kina, who stood fuming angrily to the side. And Shino, but he doesn't talk anyways. Eventually the others went off, leaving Alex, Kina, and Tayuya to head home by themselves. Tayuya walked beside Alex, looking the new flute over, Kina a few steps behind them.

"How did you get this? I couldn't find anyone in Konoha that could make a flute that would be able be used in a fight, but this looks like it was made from one of those rare metals near Iwa!" She said, looking it over from every angle.

"I asked the Hokage if he could help me get to this town near Iwa that I heard could make almost anything you would need for battle, so I thought it would be worth a try. I did find someone able to make it, but I couldn't pick it up without looking suspicious. Thankfully Hokage-sama picked it up for me, though I didn't say what it was for until I picked it up from him after gathering everyone up earlier." He says. She looked up at him for a moment before hugging him again, but instead of just breaking away, she wrapped her arms around one of his, leaning against him as they walked.

"Thanks." She said, the two of the chatting idly on the way home, Kina silently glaring at them from behind. When they finally arrived, Alex stopped outside the door.

"Actually, tonight calls for celebration! I'll be right back, you two just relax and wait for me, alright?" He said, running back off towards the village. The girls watched him until he was out of sight, when suddenly Tayuya found herself pinned up against the side of the house, a blade to her throat.

"You…. You..!" Kina said angrily, her teeth gritted together. "Why you? Why is it always about you!? Why did he bring you back!? It was supposed to be just me and him!" Her sword trembled in her grasp, any extra push would no doubt injure the other girl. Eventually her hand let go of her weapon, letting it clatter onto the ground, tears streaming down her face.

"Ever since you came along, all he ever does is do things with you! Even when I'm around, his eyes are on you! I was here first! He should like me more!" She exclaimed, Tayuya staying silent, not sure what to say. Eventually she pulled the other girl into a hug, Kina fighting back weakly at first before giving in, hugging her back and crying into her shoulder. They stood there for a few moments, until Tayuya broke the hug.

"Let's get inside, alright?" She asked, Kina nodding. The lighter haired girl picked up the other's weapon, unlocked the door, and led Kina inside. Placing the sword off to the side, she had her sit down on the couch, sitting next to her and rubbed her back.

"I felt the same way at first." Tayuya said after a moment of silence Kina looking to her.

"Huh?" Was all she could ask, Tayuya nodding.

"While Alex and I spent time during my first weeks here when you were working on your weapons, he would talk about you more than himself. The more he talked about you, the more jealous I got. I mean, how could I compete with someone that he's known for over a year? I did try to steal him away from you, even trying to get him to kiss me, but he stopped me. He told me he didn't feel ready for any kind of commitment, but what got me to stop going after him like I did was him telling me that it would feel like he was betraying you." She explains, Kina taking a moment to take it all in.

"He… he really said that?" She wasn't that worried about the 'stealing him away from her' solely because if Tayuya was trying to do that still, then she wouldn't have mentioned it.

"Of course! If there's anything I learned about him from being around him, it's that he's one of the nicest guys I've met from here. He always helps others without wanting anything in return, not even caring if he got credit. He's like some sort of unsung hero." Kina nodded in agreement. She couldn't think of a better way to describe him.

"And while I may have gotten a pretty wonderful flute, I have to say…. I'm one hundred percent sure he'll get you something to show how much he cares about you. He doesn't like either of us more than the other, or anyone else. He cares for all of his friends equally." She said, sitting back. Kina wiped her eyes, smiling a bit.

"You're right… I guess I'm a bit foolish for not trusting in him enough. Or you, for that matter." She says, looking to the other, both of them smiling at each other. And as if his timing couldn't be better, Alex walked right in, carrying three small boxes.

"Sorry it took me so long! I had to wait for them to get out a new batch." He says before looking to them both, noticing Kina's eyes were a bit swollen. "I miss something?" He asks, blinking. Kina wiped her face with her sleeve quickly.

"Not at all! What did you go get?" She asked, getting a large smile in return, Alex grabbing a few forks for each of them.

"Well, since it is a special occasion, I got Tayuya and I some chocolate cake, and a strawberry short cake for you since you don't like chocolate and you never would shut up about that one place having them best strawberry shortcake you'd ever had." He replies, handing them their corresponding boxes, Kina blinking in surprise.

"But, that was months ago…" She said quietly enough that Alex didn't hear, Tayuya looking at her as if to say 'told you so'. Alex started to walk past them to get to the extra seat, but quickly found himself pulled by both girls to squeeze between them, both laying their heads on either shoulder. Blinking to himself, he looks to them one after another.

"Okay, I think I'm missing something. I feel like you two bonded over something." The girl's looked over at each other before looking back to him.

"It's a red-head thing." They would say at the same time before giggling. Alex didn't understand it, and was even more confused by this, but would begin eating his dessert all the same.

The next couple days were a bit eerie for Alex to say the least. Whatever happened between the girls he would never find out, but they were talking and laughing with each other a lot more than before the chunin exam finals. The dynamic between them was incredibly similar to how Ino and Sakura acted, just with less gossip. Not too much, just a bit less. The few short days they were given to get ready for the mission were spent fully on preparation, not wanting to train just to make sure they were fully prepared. Alex and Kina may not have been explicitly told that they were going to be part of the team, but they were going to try to be to help make sure their friend was safe.

When the time to leave came around, the three of them made their way to the Hokage's office, where a few others were already waiting for them.

"You're late." Jiraiya said, arms crossed as he stood beside Minato, his expression stern. They were a few minutes late admittedly, but they hadn't thought too much of it. On the other side, watching the three walk in, Itachi and Neji stood silently.

"They're here now, and that's what matters most. Since Alex and Kina are here, I believe that means you wish to be involved." The two nodded, getting a light sigh from the Hokage. "Very well. I didn't want to send too many out, but any extra help will do. Who knows what will be out there…" He says, trailing off, eyeing Jiraiya for a moment before continuing.

"The team will consist of you three, Jiraiya, Itachi, and Neji. The Byakugan and Sharingan may be invaluable to detect any threats as well as out-predict anyone who you might find. The mission is to locate Orochimaru's hideout and find out any information about him as you can. Should you come across any hostiles, eliminate them if necessary. However, if you find Orochimaru, I advise you not to engage him if possible. It is highly unlikely, but you can't know for sure. Does everyone understand?" The five in front of him nodded, Jiraiya stepping around.

"Then let's go. Tayuya, you will lead the way. Kina and I will be behind you, followed by Alex and Itachi, with Neji watching the rear. We've got no time to waste." It was a bit sudden for the genin, although not so much for Neji, but they quickly got themselves together. Net thing they knew, they were in formation running through the trees to the base.

Although Tayuya did say it would take them about three hours, she underestimated the speed of everyone else, the six of them being able to get there in only two. The entrance was very well hidden, hidden behind a genjutsu that was cast by someone who was fairly experienced at the art.

"Alright, I'll take point inside. Itachi, you'll take the rear while you three cover Neji. He'll be able to see most threats coming, but we don't want to risk him being incapacitated in case we find anything nasty. Tayuya, give us instruction on where we should go." She nods, trembling a bit, but Kina put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

The six of them proceded cautiously into the hideout. It was deceptively big, going fairly deep underground. The each floor had its own purpose, similar to an ant colony. The first level was training, several rooms being large and open. The next floor was the 'living' quarters, though the bunks were made up of slabs of rock. Beneath that was storage and the last floor was guarded off on Orochimaru's orders. They searched as much as they could the deeper in they went, not finding anyone or anything or value.

The weirdest part was that they found no signs of anyone having been there, even though Tayuya knew that this was to be part of Oto's forward bases for assaulting Konoha, yet there weren't any kind of rations. It was completely cleared out, a feat that should have taken longer than two weeks to do.

Eventually they reached the last floor, Neji stopping them for a moment.

"Hold on. I'm seeing five people ahead, one of them having what looks to be another person inside them." He said, Tayuya narrowing her eyes. She could only think of one person who that could be.

"Sakon and Ukon… they're part of the Sound Four that I was a part of too. But the Sound Four are supposed to be wherever Orochimaru is. He must still be here!" She said, doing her best to keep her voice down.

"Wait, one of them is coming. But they're walking calmly. Get on your guard just in case." He said, the others nodding, getting into a defensive stance. Eventually the heard the footsteps of the one approaching, before they emerged from the darkness. Kabuto stared them down, before surprisingly letting out a sigh a turning around.

"Lord Orochimaru is a bit farther down. He would want to speak with you." He said before walking back, leaving the others confused.

"Wait!" Jiraiya called out, not getting a response or Kabuto turning back. "Let's keep going, but stay on guard. This might be a trap." Everyone nodded, proceeding cautiously. Eventually they reached what looked to be some sort of lab, but it was in ruins. There was broken glass in several places, chemicals spilled over the floor. The further back they went, the less the damage was, coming across the only other occupants of the hideout.

"Well, well. If it isn't my old teammate." Orochimaru stated, seated on the floor and smirking to Jiraiya before coughing. Something was incredibly wrong, he looked incredibly weak, as did the others. What further confirmed it was when they saw the snake sannin hack out blood.

"And the traitor as well. Guess you got off lucky." Kidomaru said, standing against one wall. He looked mainly the same, except he was missing two arms, his bottom left and his middle right. Jirobo had one eye covered, while Sakon, or was it Ukon, looked extremely tired.

"What happened to you?" Itachi was the one to ask the question. "None of you were injured like this during your attack. It must have happened recently."

"It doesn't matter. Orochimaru, you and your cohorts are all under arrest for the murder of two kages and attacking the Hidden Leaf Village." Jiraiya said, but he didn't get the answer he expected.

"Alright, you've got me then." Orochimaru said simply before attempting to stand up, only to fall back to the ground, Kabuto rushing to his side.

"He's been poisoned. I would make an antidote, but this isn't something I've seen before. But you have, Jiraiya." He said, looking to the toad sage who furrowed his brow.

"I've known many users of poison, but the only one that was hard to find a cure for is dead now. Me, Tsunade, and Orochimaru took care of him long ago." That only made the weakened sanin laugh.

"Oh, he's gone alright. But not his power. I have some very valuable information that you could use if you bring me to Tsunade. I know she could help me, but I don't have too long." He said. It was unsettling to say the least. Here was a man who had led an army to attack Konoha two weeks prior, but now here he was, at death's door and asking for help.

"Why should we help you? After all you did, leaving you to die here is what you deserve! That way, we wouldn't have to worry about you either." Neji stated, causing Orochimaru to laugh again, this time being interrupted by a coughing fit.

"Would you believe me if I told you attacking Konoha wasn't my original intentions? That I was forced to do it against my better judgement?" He asked, getting several angry glares at him. "As I thought. But it's the truth. I'll tell you everything if you help us. But I fear it may be too late." He says before looking up to the ceiling.

"How about you start now and we'll see how that goes?" Jiraiya said, the others looking to him in a bit of shock.

"But Lord Jiraiya! He's a criminal! I mean, it's fucking Orochimaru!" Tayuya said, causing the toad sannin to sigh.

"True… but he's a smart man, still. This wouldn't happen without reason, so if you can at least tell us what happened, and it's believable enough, we'll take you in."

"Please, Lord Jiraiya, reconsider! Not to quote Tayuya on this, but this is fucking Orochimaru we're talking about here!" Kina stated.

"Hey, don't you talk about Lord Orochimaru like that you bi-!" Kidomaru started to say, only to be interrupted by Alex pinning him to the wall, floating kunai poised to strike.

"I dare you to finish that sentence." He said. Kidomaru narrowed his eyes and stayed quiet. "Good." He said, letting him go.

"If you're done, I'll explain already." Orochimaru said, looking a bit impatient. "It all started a bit over a year ago. I was trying to start my own village, and doing well. I had left initially out of anger and jealousy of not being chosen as Hokage, as you know, but I never wanted to destroy the village because of it. That would be suicide." He starts off, being interrupted by Tayuya.

"Bullshit! You wanted to create an army!" She yelled before Orochimaru glared at her.

"Did you remember what it was for? I wanted to make an army that would be able to protect the village in case we were to be attacked." He said, Tayuya going silent, but looking at him angrily still as he continued.

"Sure, I continued experiments on immortality, but I wasn't doing things as people believed I was. I never used live subjects, instead trying to bring the dead to life. In Oto, I would end up using assassins who had infiltrated my village in an attempt to kill me. In Konoha, however, I was supplied Danzo's ROOT agents who were killed, as a way for me to continue on in secrecy as well as keep his little program under the radar." This time, Jiraiya interrupted.

"You lie! ROOT was disbanded by Minato himself long before we found out!" Orochimaru shook his head.

"It was a cover up. Besides, who revealed my experiments to the Hokage?" Jiraiya's eyes widened. "Right, Danzo. He had no use for me. But back to the point, which is I never wanted to attack Konoha and never used live subjects. However, one day I was given an offer. An offer to have my immortality in exchange for Minato's life. At first I was skeptical and did not want to do it, but I was forcibly given a taste of what I was to be given.

"The power I was given changed me. It was almost as if I had no control over my thoughts and actions, only being a bystander inside my own body. I began using my own men as test subjects for further testing to recreate the power, but failed repeatedly. I did learn I could give them part of my own power that I was gifted, and it would grow with them. From there, I took my strongest and injected them with the same corrupted power, making them grow stronger. Tayuya herself would have had a taste should she not have left here during the month leading to the finals where I gave it to the other Sound 4. But I still wanted more. Eventually, I had decided to attack Konoha under the pretense of a false peace treaty, but failed in the objective I was given. I wasn't told of any sort of time limit or why I had failed if I could still get another shot in the future." At this point, he had to stop, coughing up more blood before continuing.

"They took the power I had given from me and my soldiers before leaving one to get rid of me. I thought they were fools to have a single man fight what was left of us, but we were no match. Eventually those of us here made it down here and have been in wait. A few times we tried to escape, but every time was a failure as he showed up to stop us. I have no doubt that if you try to leave, he will stop you as well." He said, finishing his story. The Konoha nin took a moment to take in all that he said, Itachi being the one to speak up next.

"Who is this man that was left behind?" He asked, Kabuto answering for Orochimaru.

"We don't know much, but what we know is that he was part of an organization of eleven individuals, all who were spreading their corrupted power. He was referred to simply as 'Four', the organization members not having names but were called based on their rank in strength. From our escape attempts, he has a poison similar to Hanzo's, can turn into gas as easily as the Second Mizukage could turn to liquid, and is highly proficient with a sword." The medic/spy replied.

"However, while he does have a poison similar to Hanzo, you chakra is affected as well. The more chakra you have, the longer you can withstand the effects, but using any chakra will speed the damage up faster, which is the reason I haven't been able to use any jutsu or shed my body." He added.

The Konoha nin looked to each other. This all sounded ridiculous, but they had more proof for the story than against it, and none of them could prove that Orochimaru didn't intend to attack Konoha. Eventually, Jiraiya let out a sigh.

"Alright, fine. We'll help you escape. But, should it turn out you're not telling the truth, there will be hell to pay." The sage said, just as what sounded to be a large explosion occurred above them, making debris fall from the ceiling.

"What was that? Neji, do you see anything?" He asked, getting a nod from the Hyuga.

"I see a single person, and he's slowly making his way inside." He stated, the others beginning to worry as the implications sank in, making their hearts sink as well.

"Seems our 'friend' is finally coming to finish the job." Orochimaru said grimly.

* * *

Author's Note

And done! Wow, holy shit, this took me a lot longer to finish than I thought it would. Guess things just weren't going my way to get it done. But in the next chapter, I promise, there will be action, as much as I can reasonably get in.

But I do hope you enjoyed this chapter. Any and all feedback or comments are greatly appreciated. Gives me a bit more of a reason to write more other than just to keep myself occupied, but just seeing the views go up is enough for me.

Until next time!


	10. Mistress of the Winds

Author's Note

Alright, it's time! Finally, a bit of action to go in the story. And definitely not like that water balloon fight chapter. I did have to think long and hard about how to best pull it off, but I finally found a way that I liked, and I hope others do as well!

Without further ado, let's get into this!

* * *

Chapter 10: Mistress of the Winds

"Alright, what the fuck are we supposed to do now?" Tayuya asked, the small group gathered in the underground lab looking to her.

"We fight him of course! I'll never go down without a fight!" Kidomaru shouted, the others glancing at him. "What?"

"He has poison that will hurt us for using chakra and can turn himself to gas. If you have any ideas how to fight him, then go ahead and tell us." Kabuto said. Kidomaru just sighed, crossing is top arms.

"Orochimaru, surely you have some sort of secret passage way around here." Jiraiya said, getting a shake from the other sannin's head.

"This hideout is one of the newest. Besides, I may plan ahead, but a secret route out of a fairly well hidden base wouldn't be at the top of my list. You wouldn't even know where to look if it were for the girl." He said before Neji got the others' attention.

"Well, you might want to think of a plan faster, he's almost here." He said, Byakugan blazing, staring towards the only way in and out. No one said anything for a moment before Jirobo stood up.

"Kidomaru. Sakon. Ukon. Our turn." He said, the mentioned others standing up, Sakon and Ukon splitting into two bodies.

"What are you numbskulls think you're going to do?" Tayuya asked, raising one eyebrow.

"We'll trap him down here and let the rest of you escape." He stated, cracking his knuckles and his neck. "The Four Violet Flames Formation should keep him trapped as long as one of the four of us still have chakra." Tayuya widened her eyes. In theory, they could still perform it as Sakon and Ukon both were separate people, but…

"As soon as one of you breaks the formation, then you'll all die for sure!" She says, one of the twins rolling his eyes. "What do you care, traitor? We don't need you anymore. Besides, our objective is to protect Lord Orochimaru, no matter the cost."

As he said that, they could hear the sound of someone making their way towards them. Immediately the remaining Sound Four spread out around the room, Kidomaru being the closest.

"As soon as the barrier is up, go! There's no telling how long we can hold him." He shouted, him and the others going through the hand signs before placing their hands on the floor, the purple box forming in the center of the room. Just in time, too, as they could now see the one who was after them.

He was bald, wearing no shirt or any footwear, the only visible piece of cloth being a beige pair of pants. His skin was fairly tanned, and his body was very muscular. The biggest part that stood out about him, however, was the array of tattoos all over the left side of his body, from his head all the way to his foot, all the word 'death' but in different languages.

"What are we waiting for, let's get out of here!" Orochimaru yelled at the others, being supported by Kabuto with one arm around the other's shoulders. Jiraiya took the other side of him, surprisingly enough, and everyone raced out of the ruined lab to begin making their way to the exit. They didn't find any trouble on the way up, but as they approached the exit, Neji shouted out.

"Hold on! There's someone out there, but their presence is faint… no, wait, it just disappeared!" He said, the others looking to him.

"Disappeared? You mean they left?" Kina asked, Neji shaking his head.

"No… They didn't move the entire time I could sense them. But they didn't enter my blind spot, so how can this be?" He responded.

"We'll just have to be careful and watch out. If we're lucky, it's help." Jiraiya said. The rest of them nodded, advancing once they got into a defensive position. Walking outside, they took a careful look around.

"Be cautious, who knows who or what could be out here." Jiraiya stated. The group moved carefully but quickly away from the hideout, nothing out of the ordinary noticeable. After a few moments of silence, Kina tugged on Alex's sleeve to get his attention.

"Al… ex…" She got out. When he turned to her, his eyes widened, as did everyone else. Behind her was a girl who looked just barely older than her, and sticking out of Kina's side was a thin blade.

"No!" Alex yelled, throwing a punch at the girl, but she vanished before their eyes, appearing on a branch nearby, swinging her feet in the air. The blade being pulled from Kina made her fall to the ground, Alex grabbing her just before she landed. "Come on, stay with me!" He exclaimed, seeing as Kina began to go into shock, bleeding out rapidly.

"Aww, don't worry, she'll live. I was just getting bored of you so-called ninja looking around so scared. I mean, you guys make me look bad. I mean, really, why are you guys so noisy? If you weren't, I wouldn't have known you guys escape Four." She stated, making the others narrow their eyes.

"You, a ninja? You sure don't look the part. You look like some shitty, gothic Lolita-wanna be who discovered pink." Tayuya said, which to be fair was a fairly accurate description. The girl wore a typical Lolita outfit, though instead of white, there was a light pink, matching the color of her hair which was worn in twin pigtails. To further the stereotype, she carried a black and pink parasol in one hand, the tip dripping with fresh blood as she idly waved it around in the air.

"Wait, you mentioned Four. That must mean…" Itachi began, only to be cut off.

"Oops! Guess I let it slip a bit too early. But can you blame me? I've been out here for days with him. Did you know he doesn't talk at all? Of course you don't, you haven't been around him for as long as I have. I don't know why no one else joined us though. You'd think strength in numbers, right? That's the only reason I ended up here I guess. Even if he didn't like the idea, he wouldn't tell me to go away." She babbled on, practically ignoring them as she swung her legs back and forth nonchalantly. In the meantime, Alex did his best to stop Kina's bleeding, not even noticing what she was saying. Eventually, Itachi kneeled down beside him.

"I'll take care of her. I don't know medical jutsu, but this should be easy to bandage up." He stated, Alex nodding and handing her off to him, albeit shakily. Taking a deep breath, he stood up, facing the girl.

"Oh look, he's soooo caring to his little girlfriend~ Makes me sick. You should have been able to help her, you know. But you couldn't cause you're- Whoa!" She exclaimed as she dodged a kick that would have hit her, instead breaking the branch she say on. Sitting on another branch, she pouted. "Oh, come on! I'm just teasing. Wait a minute… Ooh, I know you! You're the one our leader said to kill on sight! Lucky me! But, I guess that comes with being lucky number Thirteen!" She said, Orochimaru narrowing his eyes.

"Thirteen? But there's supposed to be eleven of you!" In return, the girl just laughed.

"Eleven? That was, what, a year ago? Seems you forgot members can still come in. You were supposed to be the twentieth, but I guess as long as those others accepted, there's nineteen now. Guess we'll have to find a new Twenty…" She said with a sigh before looking back up. "Anyways, I got some killing to do. The rest of you can wait there while I take care of that." She said, hopping up to stand on the branch, opening up her parasol. Alex quickly appeared beside Jiraiya.

"Lord Jiraiya, I think it's time I stopped holding back. We don't know what she can do, and I don't think she's planning on letting me live." He said, not taking his eyes off of Thirteen, the sage raising one eyebrow.

"Are you sure? You're not alone here. We can help-" He was cut off.

"No. This is something I need to do. She's not after anyone else, plus she hurt Kina. I need to take care of this myself." He stated, Jiraiya letting out a sigh.

"Very well…" He said, reaching into his pocket and tossing him a small scroll. Alex grabbed it, biting his thumb of his other hand hard enough to draw blood. Flicking it open, he revealed a series of seals, running his thumb over the middle of them all before dropping the scroll.

"Huh, that's cute… I guess. Too bad it won't help you!" She yelled, dropping down and disappearing, only to reappear in front of him, parasol poised to strike through his chest. "Now die!" She exclaimed, only to receive a punch to her stomach that sent her flying back, hitting a tree behind her.

"Shut up. You talk too much." Alex stated. While it wasn't obvious at first, he seemed a bit different. The once warm eyes had become a chilling glare as his body had a blueish glow to it. Before anyone could say anything, he vanished similarly to how Thirteen did, reappearing where she had landed about to land another punch, only to find her gone, instead now several feet away.

"Lucky shot." She stated before running at him again. Instead of dodging the attack, he held up one hand in front of him, a large shield forming in front of him, blocking the attack. Instead of just using it as a shield, however, he broke it apart into six silver orbs, making them orbit around him.

Taking another swing at her, she dodged the punch with a smirk, only for her to receive a blow from one of the orbs. Narrowing her eyes, she jumped back, wiping a small line of blood from the corner of her mouth.

"You know, that's already more annoying than what I thought it would be." She stated, before having to dodge a hail of silver shuriken by rolling to the side. "Scratch that, a LOT more annoying." She stated, narrowing her eyes. "Guess I need to step things up as well." She says, vanishing from sight.

Alex had the shuriken return to him, reforming into six orbs, looking around for any sign of her, breathing heavily. While he had yet to be hit by her, using six orbs at once was something that he was used to. It was using up both a lot of chakra and a lot of his concentration to keep each one up.

He quickly rolled to the side, just in time to narrowly avoid Thirteen falling from above, a large wave of wind emitting from where she landed, going forward to slice several trees in half.

"Maybe I underestimated you already… but I'm not going to hold back anymore. Prepare to face the power of the Mistress of the Winds!" She exclaimed, no longer holding a parasol but a two handed sword, the blade encircled by air. Without even moving towards him, she sliced the blade in his direction, not just hitting air, but emitting another wave of wind at him, forcing him to dodge, not sure if he would be able to block it but not wanting to risk it. When he recovered, she once again was nowhere in sight.

"As silent and graceful as the breeze, but as strong and deadly as a tornado, I will tear you apart!" Her voice seemed to come from all around him before the voice was behind him, turning around and striking blindly, only to miss.

"Keep up if you want to keep your life!" She taunted, now to his side. It seemed she was even faster, or was able to use the Fourth Hokage's technique without the need for special seals, the former being most possible. The hardest part was that as he looked around, he could catch glimpses of her disappearing behind trees. It seemed he wasn't going to be able to win by his ability and strength alone.

Taking in a deep breath, he went through several handsigns, finishing by hold his hands out to either side of him. "Fire release: Blast cannon!" He shouted. However, instead of fire coming from his body, the orbs each shot out what looked to be a small fireball, but would stop in midflight before each exploded at the same time, fire engulfing the nearby trees. Thankfully the others had moved to a safer location beforehand, but he would never admit to not checking first.

With her main cover blown, quite literally, Thirteen was unable to hide. However, she was almost trembling from the blast, not expecting something like that.

"Y-you're not supposed to be this strong already! I need to report this!" She exclaimed, turning away to jump away, only to find herself stuck in place, sinking into the ground. "H-huh? Hey, this is cheating!" She yelled, noticing Jiraiya several yards away, hands on the ground. He smirked to her before looking to Alex.

"Told you that you might need some help! Now finish her off!" He yelled, Alex blinking before smiling and nodding, rushing toward the girl, struggling to get out of the ground that had turned into a swap, only to find herself impaled several times in the back.

"No… fair…" She says weakly before her body went limp. However, she didn't stay limp for long, her body glowing before vanishing into the silver kunai.

"Hmm…" Alex walked over and collected up the kunai, looking them over but not seeing anything strange. Turning them back into chakra and reabsorbing, however, quickly through him off balance as he felt a burst of strength, making him fall to one knee.

"Alex! Are you alright? What happened?" Tayuya was the first to run up to him. He looked to her and smiled.

"Oh, I'm fine. I'm not sure what that was though." He said, slowly standing up and taking a step forward, only to stumble and have the girl catch him.

"Looks like you'll need some help getting to back to the village as well." Jiraiya said, looking to where the others joined up with them. Itachi was now carrying an unconscious Kina, but her breathing was steady.

"She should be fine for now, but we still need to get back as quickly as possible. Four's still trapped in the hideout. We have no time to waste." The Uchiha stated. How they had forgotten about Four already, they wouldn't know, but with that reminder, they had to get out of there. Neji and Tayuya held Alex between them, Jiraiya helped Kabuto with Orochimaru, and Itachi continued to carry Kina.

Before they would take off, Jiraiya would summon a toad, telling it to get to Minato, wanting him to wait for them at the entrance with some medics, though made sure that the toad didn't catch sight of Orochimaru, not wanting the wrong idea to go through the blonde's head. While the journey was more difficult than the way there, the way back to Konoha still only took three hours, being able to keep pace even with three people that needed to be carried.

Arriving at the gate with no issue, they found the Hokage and the medic nin there as requested. However, when Minato caught sight of who was with them, his eyes widened. As the group walked up, Jiraiya sighed.

"Kid…" He began before the blonde held up a hand.

"I already don't believe it."

* * *

Author's Note

And that'll end this chapter off. So! Finally got some fighting in. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. It's probably the biggest thing I need to work on, fight scenes being something I've never really tackled before, but I did have some fun writing it.

Please do leave a comment about what you did or didn't like about the chapter or story up to this point. Any and all feedback is much appreciated, but it would be better to hear how I can improve the story to help it make more sense or better to read. Nothing much else for me to say today.

Until next time!


	11. A Temporary Goodbye

Author's Note

Hey everyone! Just thought I'd let those of you keeping up with the story so far that I will be trying to upload as much as I can, so my upload schedule is going to bit fairly sporadic. I might upload three chapters in one day or one chapter after three days. Just depends on how life goes, ya know?

Also, after this chapter, we're going to have a large skip, probably the longest for the actual story and hopefully the last one. I'm just a bit tired of having them stay around the 11-12 age range, and I'd want to bump them up several years for some added adult themes, so this is a bit of a preemptive warning. Hopefully this chapter wraps up a few loose ends and allows for a fairly smooth transition.

Let's get on with the chapter!

* * *

Chapter 11: A Temporary Goodbye

"This is a mess… Can I retire yet? Or at least get a drink?" The Hokage seemed to whine, looking at the people around him. Jiraiya, standing next to him with his wife to his other side, sighed.

"I know how you feel. I thought we knew what was going on, but now…" The sage sighed once again. "You know, a drink doesn't sound too bad right now." He states before being hit on the head by Tsunade.

"Take this seriously." She said before looking to Minato, who spoke up.

"Now, a lot has happened in the past few days, so let's go over what we know." He said, rubbing his temples as he looked around the room. Some of his most trusted jonin were there, mainly to keep watch on the other occupants. Orochimaru and Kabuto were to his right, the snake sannin recovered from his poisoning and both of them currently spending their nights in Konoha's prison. In front of him was Alex, who a lot of this seemed to revolve around, with Kina and Tayuya to either side of him. They would refuse to leave his side for whatever reason, making Minato have to relent to let them join. To his left, however, was a group of various missing S-ranked nin who made up the group known as Akatsuki, led by Yahiko, who was joined by Nagito and Konan, the rest behind them.

The aforementioned members had come to the village while Jiraiya's group was investigating Orochimaru's hideout. They come under the guise of Yahiko being Amegakure's new leader, want to make peace, while also revealing Nagito's heritage as a sign of good faith. When Jiraiya's group returned with Orochimaru, Yahiko was there to hear the mission report in the Hokage's office, revealing his true intentions of coming to Konoha, telling of how Orochimaru was once part of the Akatsuki for a while before leaving, as well as how the group's current goal was to eliminate the organization, the name of which was revealed to be Ragnarok.

After sending word to the other members of Akatsuki, they waited until the others had arrived and Orochimaru was healed, bringing them to the current meeting to discuss what to do about Ragnarok.

"Alright, first off, one year ago, Orochimaru as well as the members of Akatsuki were approached by Ragnarok with the promise of power in exchange for help in their goals, being the destruction of everything. Orochimaru was corrupted by a taste of what they would give him while Akatsuki not only denied but began fighting them, since both groups' goals collided with another." Minato starts, pausing to look around in case anyone had any objections. With no one interrupting, he continued.

"Orochimaru was essentially possessed by this power to carry out an attempt on my life, while Akatsuki began searching and fighting against Ragnarok. Hearing of Orochimaru's attack on Konoha, Yahiko decided to find out more, traveling here under the pretense of discussing a treaty between Ame and Konoha. Any questions so far?" He asks, Kakashi taking a step forward.

"What is Akatsuki's goal?" He directed to Yahiko.

"World peace." He replied simply, a few people in response.

"And why are S-rank criminals helping you to find world peace…?" The silver haired ninja followed up with. Behind Yahiko, said criminals began to fidget a bit, some looking around the room inconspicuously.

"He's got a way with words, ya know?" One of the said, though no one could tell who.

"Enough. As crazy as criminals fighting for peace sounds, they've posed no threat to us and seem to be on the same side… As a side note, mentioning having the Akatsuki meeting with Konoha like this will be considered treason." He said, knowing that if any other village heard that a criminal from their village was cooperating with Konoha for whatever reason, it wouldn't look good.

"Now, Yahiko, what else can you tell us about Ragnarok." He says, looking to the orange-haired, who nodded and took a step forward.

"Other than their goal, we have been tracking them down and fighting them for the past year, giving us a good amount of insight on them. First, it seems that each member not just specializes, but masters one or two areas of expertise. This can range from an elemental affinity, a fighting style, and so on. Their skills become unparalleled to anyone alive, yet several have used abilities that were once used by people currently deceased." He says, Nagito stepping beside him.

"Looking into this further, we've found out that several graves of prominent shinobi have been disturbed, including Hanzo the Salamander. Looking even more into this, we've discovered that what we've been referring to as simply 'power' is actually the essence of someone, and can be extracted whether they are dead or alive. From what we can tell, their leader is extracting the essence of powerful figures in the past, and is giving them a physical form to do their bidding." He says, Yahiko nodding and picking back up.

"Because these members are not actual people but more manifestations of essence, should they be killed, they are still able to return. However, not killing them is extremely dangerous, as they grow in power the longer they have a physical form. Killing them causes them to lose most of that power and require time to get it back." He says, finishing his report. Minato nodded, looking towards Alex who was staring off into space.

"So you're saying the member called Thirteen they fought will come back at some point?" He questioned, to which Konan answered.

"Yesterday, I and a few other member of Akatsuki were lead to where the battle took place to check out the area. Not only was Four gone from the hideout…" Tayuya looked down at that part, having been told the fate of the others that stayed. "But there was no trace of Thirteen anywhere. Usually it takes a few weeks for them to reform, and the essence stays in place. With nothing there, we have to conclude that she was eliminated for sure." She states before Alex finally spoke up.

"Not eliminated… She was absorbed." He says, holding one hand up and looking at it.

"Absorbed? What do you mean?" Minato asked, Alex looking up to him.

"She called herself the 'Mistress of the Winds', and used powerful winds techniques, so I think it's safe to say she was supposed to have been the master of the wind element. Not only have I felt stronger since defeating her, but my use of wind jutsu has increased dramatically." He says, Yahiko nodding.

"That seems to fit what we were told by one of the members after running into them several times. They told us that they would keep coming back, only able to be truly defeated by the one who could absorb them. That person mentioned must be the boy." He said, Minato crossing his fingers in front of his face.

"So, they'll continue coming back until Alex absorbs them… That's not too reassuring that it requires a specific person to take them out for good, but at least they aren't immortal." The Hokage says, Yahiko speaking up once again.

"However, while Thirteen wasn't able to report where Alex was to them, should he be found out by any others, there's no guarantee that they'll be caught beforehand, and they'll soon come after him to eliminate him." He says, Jiraiya's face turning grim. As happy as he was to see his former students, the timing couldn't have been worse for a reunion.

"If that happens, and he stay here, Konoha won't be safe…" The sage says with a sigh. Tsunade turned to him, eyes widened a bit.

"You're not implying that we're in danger as long as he's here, are you?" She asked, no getting a response from him. The whole room was silent as all eyes fell to Alex, who suddenly felt a huge weight on his shoulders. Minutes passed, no one saying a word, until Yahiko spoke up again.

"He'll have to come with us." All eyes shifted towards him, Minato nodding.

"That does make sense… Not only are you experienced in fighting them, but should they start coming after you, they'll have a dangerous fight on their hands, and they run the risk of having him take their essence. This seems to be the best course of action to me." He said, letting out a sigh. However, the girls beside Alex voiced their complaints.

"Well, if he's going anywhere, I'm going too!" Kina said, Tayuya nodding.

"Yeah! Besides, you told me he has to look after me, and he can't do that when he's not fucking here here!" She stated, both girls protectively grabbing onto either one of his arms. Alex gave the Hokage a look that almost screamed 'Help me'.

"Oh no, we're not taking care of two shitty girls who can't bear to stay away from their boyfriend!" Hidan yelled out from behind Yahiko, a couple other members voicing their agreement. They never agreed to babysit as part of the organization after all.

"What was that, fuck boy!?" Tayuya yelled back, Minato letting out a sigh before giving a glance to Yahiko that easily read as 'This is your problem now.'

"Enough! We'll be staying in the village a few extra days so Alex can get prepared. Also, Nagito seems to be enjoying his time with relatives." That got his friend to blush a bit, Kushina giggling at the reaction. "We'll think it over during that time. Until then, Akatsuki is to help take watch of the village in case anyone from Ragnarok shows up. Understood?" Yahiko said, facing his subordinates.

"Yes, Leader!" They said in unison, making the rest of the people in the room sweatdrop at seeing criminal behave in such a way.

"I can see why you left." Kabuto whispered to Orochimaru, who nodded in response.

"Alright, now that that's settled… In a few days, Alex, possibly with others, will leave with the Akatsuki to help take care of Ragnarok. Any questions?" He asks, Alex raising his hand to which he gave him the go-ahead.

"How long would this take?" He asks. That was a good question, how long would it take to take out that group?

"Hmm… Well, not forever… But we also don't know how long it might take to get rid of them. If we help him train to get stronger to the point where he could undoubtedly take care of most of their members alone before bringing him back, we might be looking at… four years." He stated, the girls to either side of Alex gasping.

"Four _years_!? There's no way we're going to be away from him that long!" Kina stated, Tayuya voicing her complaint as well, getting several members of the Akatsuki to voice their own complaints of having to watch them. As they began to argue and bicker, Minato sunk into his seat, wondering how far away it would be to the nearest drink.

Eventually the jonin got involved, separating the genin from the S-rank criminals. Oddly there was hardly a difference between the profanities spewed back and forth as well as insults to those who dragged them off. The only ones who stayed were the sanin, Kabuto, Minato, Kushina, Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan. Jiraiya took a look at his former students.

"By the way, how did you guys take care of Hanzo? I knew he was corrupt, but after our own fight, I wouldn't have expected the three of you to take him out." He says, Yahiko reaching up to scratch the back of his head.

"Well, it wasn't easy… Honestly, he almost had us thanks to a surprise attack, taking Konan hostage. Hanzo gave us the option of killing me or Konan, and I was just about ready to sacrifice myself before this woman appeared out of nowhere and helped us, freeing Konan and fighting beside us. We asked what we could do to repay her, but she just told us not to mention she was ever there before vanishing." He explained, Jiraiya face-palming while Nagato and Konan sighed.

"Then… why did you tell us now…?" He asks, Yahiko blinking before shrugging.

"Oops. I just trust you all. Besides, I doubt we'd ever see her again." He states, the others nodding as they discussed if and how they should tell the other hidden villages.

Back at Alex's place, he and the girls had finally gotten back, him sitting on the couch with either girl to the side of him, a scowl on both of their faces.

"I'm not letting you go alone with those shitheads. But I don't think we should go with them anyways." Tayuya said, Kina nodding.

"Yeah, they're criminals after all. Why the hell should we leave the village? There's plenty of strong ninja here!" Seems Tayuya's language has been rubbing off on her. Alex shrugged, chuckling some.

"I dunno, but for criminals, you two were getting along quite well. Besides, they're a lot stronger than most shinobi here. And Konoha is a bit too large for constantly watching out for enemies that we know nothing about, but they've been fighting them for the past year. We could also get a lot stronger around them, maybe learn some powerful techniques." He said, the girls sighing.

"So, you want to go no matter what?" Tayuya asked, getting a nod in return. "Fine… but we're coming with you, no matter what they say." Kina let out a small shout of agreement, Alex gently holding them both closer.

"Alright, alright. I'll at least try to convince them if they don't want to bring you along. It'll at least help spare them the headache of trying to chase you two off before they give in." He said, both girls letting out a small laugh.

The next few days were filled with getting everything they needed together as well as saying goodbye to their friends, the Hokage making an announcement to all the village's shinobi that there was a looming threat that they would all need to prepare for, and that Alex was leaving for a long training trip in Amegakure. While not official yet, Tayuya and Kina would tell their friends that they were leaving with Alex, not giving a clear answer why but their friends caught on.

The day before it was time to leave, Alex went to talk with the Hokage about what will happen with their house, also being told that they would have two ninja from the village joining them to assist Akatsuki and keep them safe, and that they would be picked up by them to leave the next day.

Finally, the day arrived where Alex was to leave the village, Kina and Tayuya tagging along whether the Akatsuki members wanted them to or not. As they were making last minute preparations and making sure they had everything they needed, a knock was heard on their door, Alex answering it.

"It's time." Itachi said, standing in the doorway, clad in the Akatsuki's signature robe. Behind him stood Obito and Konan, both dressed in the same way. Alex blinked, looking at them a moment longer.

"Huh. Wouldn't have thought you two were the ones going. Thought you were going to help Sasuke train." He stated, Itachi shaking his head.

"For now, I have nothing left to teach him until he gets his Mangekyo as well. Lady Tsunade has even volunteered to transplant our eyes to each other when he does, so we won't have to deal with the side effects." The Uchiha stated, Alex nodding. Itachi had shared how he got his, seeing his best friend Shisui assassinated one night in an attempt to have his eyes stolen.

"Ah, I see. Thought, what's with the cloak? I thought this was temporary. Though for some reason, it does fit you and Obito quite well." Konan stepped forward, pulling out a folded pair that seemed to be his size.

"Everyone who's apart of Akatsuki must wear them. It's your uniform." She stated bluntly, her tone as monotonous as ever. Accepting the robes, he glanced to the two Uchiha, Itachi not seeming to mind it much, but Obito gave him a look as if to say 'Don't question her on it'. As he looked the robe over, he noticed it wasn't just one, but three.

"So, are these all for me? Or do the girls…" He trailed off, Konan nodding her head.

"They are allowed to come on the grounds that they do not end up interfering with the mission. If they also wish to train, they are allowed to ask for help or advice, but none of the members are required to help. Is that clear?" She asks, Alex noticing two of the robes pulled out of his grasp.

"Yes ma'am!" The girls said in unison, having appeared out of seemingly nowhere to either side of Alex.

"Good. Now, let's go. The others are waiting." She stated, watching them until they put on the cloaks. Once they realized what she wanted them to do, they quickly put them on before following her and the two Uchiha to where the rest of the Akatsuki waited outside the village.

"You're late. I don't like to be kept waiting." The member they were told was called Sasori stated, inside his Hiruko puppet. While they were walking, Konan explained to the Konoha nin a bit about each member to help them try not to get killed by any of them.

"Yeah! What to you fucks so fucking long? I could have sacrifice about ten people to Jashin!" Hidan yelled.

"I still don't understand why a group dedicated to finding peace would keep a homicidal fuckboy like you around!" Tayuya yelled, Hidan about retort before finding his mouth sewn shut by his partner.

"I question the same thing sometimes. I feel like I'm kept around purely to keep him in check." Kakuzu said, watching as Hidan tried to get rid of the black threads keeping his mouth closed. Kisame sighed and shook his head.

"Oh, come on. You two make a great pair! You both never seem to die for one. And he gets to do his sacrifices on bandits and other missing nin, while you get to turn in bounties. Seems like a win-win to me." He said, showing off a toothy grin. Overhead, a clay bird circled around them a bit before going back to the ground, Deidara hopping off.

"Alright, no sounds of any Ragnarok members, un. We better head out now since we've got extra people this time, un. If we're lucky, it'll only take four days instead of three days, un." That was totally not going to be annoying anytime soon, as shown by Kina's slight wince each time he let out an 'un'.

"Alright, sounds like we're all ready. Let's move." Yahiko stated, Nagato to one side of him and Konan slipping to his other side. Everyone nodded in agreement before running off, Alex taking one last look to Konoha before following after them all.

* * *

Author's Note

Well, that was a load of crap. This was in progress for three days. Three. Days. Where did the time go? Why did it take me so long to get this done? I don't even know!

But yes, finally we will get out of all this. I considered following their time with the Akatsuki over the next four years or so, but I think I'd rather make that into its own story, but only if there's an interest in it. Yes, bit of extortion. I get enough people saying that want to read about that, I'll end up making the story to go along the side, or just alternate between the stories. I'd be fine with just… five people saying they'd read it? Let's go with five. Sounds reasonable enough.

As for what's to come ahead, well, a lot more action, adult situations, moments people hopefully find funny, and other stuff I can't think of off the top of my head. Another possibility is giving Alex a bit of a harem. Not _every_ girl, of course. Mainly the ones I personally like.

A little reminder is that this does not necessarily mean the half-way point of the story. I'm hoping to be able to get enough inspiration and ideas that this is more a fourth or fifth of the way through. Maybe even a tenth! Who knows. But there will be several members of Ragnarok left after the skip. Just not as many.

Anyways, I feel like I'm rambling. Am I? Comment if you think I talk about the story too much in the AN! Or comment what you like or don't like about the story. Feedback is widely appreciated, even just a simple 'Keep up the good work!' will be enough to help fuel me to get the next chapter out sooner.

Until next time!


	12. AN Story On Possible Hiatus

Author's Note

After thinking on it and discussing things with a few friends who knew of me writing, I've decided to stop this story where it is. Not because I'm not having fun... Well, I am having a bit less fun, but it's mainly because I don't think this kind of story was something that I should have started off with.

As it is, this story is complete. Should I return to it, I will make either a part two, or just put it back to in-progress and move on. I do want to write stories that people enjoy reading and I enjoy writing, but a story about on overpowered OC? Yeah, that's not really a place to start for a Naruto story.

I'll take some time to read other stories to get a bit of an idea of how to better my own writing, looking back to here as an example, but this one may come back and it may not. I just don't think this is that good of a story overall, so I may also redo it from scratch someday.

Also, I'm not that much of a fan of the site, since it seems it hasn't been updated in the past five months, have seen several reports of people not get reviews to show up, and half the time I've updated the story, it doesn't show up properly for almost 24 hours. So, I will be putting my email up on my profile for criticism, comments, suggestions, whatever. So if you really want to make sure I get your feedback, that might be the best way to do it.

So, to reiterate, this part of the story is done. I may come back to it in the future, but for now this is to be considered complete. Anyone with any interest in letting me know that they've enjoyed the story and want more can email me, with my email in my profile. I'll also be posting it at the bottom of the story here and for every new chapter of whatever I upload.

Until next time!

Email feedback and suggestions to: six6sixbeast


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